“Well, she is crazy, you know.”

“She’s very crazy.” John was intimately familiar with his ex-wife’s history of bizarre behavior, but this was too wild even for her, and far beyond her scope. And besides, Mamie was confined to Georgia, in deep therapy. “But I guarantee you Mamie’s got nothing to do with this.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

“First, call in that prescription.” He called information, got the number of the CVS at K and 17th, and told them to have fifty Tegretol 1oo mg. chewables ready for Katie Vanduyne ASAP. Since they’d never heard of him, he had to supply his office address and phone number, plus his DEA number.

“Now I’m going to get back to Snake.”

“Please be careful.”

“I’m just going to tell him that the prescription is ready and waiting. But I’m also going to ask for the answer to a question only Katie can give. And I’ll tell them that as long as I know Katie’s alive, I’ll do anything to keep her that way. I’ll perform any ‘service’ they want.”

“I am hoping you can do this.”

“I’m hoping, too, Ma.” But then what do I do? Sit around and wait? Call the pharmacy every five minutes to see if the prescription’s been picked up? He realized he was starting to fall apart. He’d be a gibbering basket case soon if he didn’t do something.

27

Paulie parked the panel truck in a lot on Desales Street and walked over to the Mayflower Hotel. He stood in the entrance to the bar and searched the late-afternoon crowd for Mac. Some crowd—only half full and mostly suits. They called this a bar? Cushioned seats and a polished floor and hardly anybody smoking. This wasn’t a bar—it was a goddamn cocktail party.

Mac had called saying he had an errand for Paulie. That got Paulie nervous. Usually they never left the package once they started babysitting. Maybe Mac was making an exception because it was a kid. Still, Mac had sounded a little weird. He’d wanted Paulie to ask the kid if she knew how to swallow pills, and who was her favorite character on TV. Poppy had got the answers out of her, no problem. But what was going on?

Paulie saw someone waving from a corner and went over. He noticed the suits gawking his leathers. He stuck out here. Usually he didn’t mind that, but considering the circumstances, he’d have preferred to be somewhere else.

Mac sat with his back to the room. He was wearing a white shirt and a blue blazer with a Spiderman pin in the left lapel. He was drinking something clear on the rocks.

“How come we always meet in hotels?” Paulie whispered as he took a seat opposite him. “There’s gotta be less public places.”

“Where would you prefer?” Mac said, a sneer playing about his thin lips. “Some low-life dive that’s being watched by the fuzz twenty-four hours a day, where we’d stick out among the regulars?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Look, Paulie. I meet you in places where an unfamiliar face is the rule rather than the exception. If that doesn’t make sense to you, then you’ve got a real big problem.”

“All right,” Paulie said grudgingly. Mac was right as usual. He ordered a Heineken when the waiter came by.

Mac said, “You get the answers I wanted?” Paulie nodded. “Yeah. She says she swallows pills real good. Does it all the time. And she likes Maggie Simpson the best of all. So what’s this errand you need?”

“The package needs medicine.”

“Oh, fuck!” Bad enough a kid. Now a sick kid. That explained about swallowing pills.

“Relax. Just a pill she’s got to take twice a day. No biggee.”

“Easy for you to say. Where’s this medicine?”

“In a drugstore a few blocks from here.”

“And you want me to pick it up.”

“You got it.”

Paulie said nothing as the waiter delivered his beer. He was pissed—and worried—but tried to show just the pissed part.

“What do I get for sticking my ass out like this?”

“Nothing,” Mac said. “It’s part of the job.”

“No it ain’t.”

“Look, Paulie,” Mac said, eyes blazing as he leaned forward and lowered his voice even further, “I don’t like this anymore than you do. I learned about this after the pickup, so it’s news to me too. I’m not getting extra because the package is sick, and so neither are you.”

Paulie didn’t feel like backing down this time.

“And what if I don’t pick up the pills?”

“Then she starts flopping around on the floor like a break dancer OD’d on ice, and pretty soon she dies, and you and Poppy’ll have to find a way to dump the body. Plus you’ll have a murder rap hanging over you. But not for long.”

“Why not?” The look in Mac’s stone eyes told him the answer.

Paulie drummed his fingers on the table. “I don’t like this, man.”

“Just do it and get it over with. You’ve still got your beard. You put on those shades, dump the leather, get yourself a hooded sweatshirt—bam—you’re in and out and it’s a done deal. I’ll have you covered.”

“Oh, well, then,” Paulie said, letting the acid flow, “I don’t have a goddamn thing to worry about, do I?”

28

Seemed like an eon since John had slipped into the CVS.

He’d examined every Easter card at least twice, checked out all the chocolate eggs and baskets, and read the ingredients on all the over-the-counter medications.

He could have hung out at the magazine rack but that was too far toward the front. He needed to stay within earshot of the pharmacy counter.

All the reading was eye exercise and nothing more. None of the information penetrated. And if it had, he wouldn’t have been able to make sense of it. He was too keyed up to concentrate on anything except the names people gave at the prescription counter.

This is insane, he kept telling himself. Why am I doing this? I’m endangering Katie’s life just by being here.

Why was he here? He was never impulsive. His style was to take the long view. Get the facts, act if necessary, but otherwise stand ready and see how things played out—traits that made for a lousy surgeon but an excellent internist.

But what kind of father had that made him? Katie would have been spared so much if he’d acted sooner as he saw Mamie decompensating. But he’d loved Mamie. And he’d thought he could keep an eye on her. Wrong. He’d never dreamed she’d do what she did.

Maybe that was why he was lurking about this pharmacy. Maybe he’d learned that watchful waiting didn’t always cut it. Especially where Katie was involved.

No “maybe” that he wasn’t cut out for this sort of thing. The waiting had reduced him to a trembling mass of raw nerves. He— And then a devastating thought struck him.

Snake knows what I look like. He has to. He’s been watching us, waiting for his chance to snatch Katie.

What if Snake had already spotted him and ducked back out, saying to hell with Vanduyne’s brat.

He nearly dropped the Easter egg coloring kit he was holding as a dull roar grew in his ears. Oh, Christ, what have I done? He had to get out of here. Maybe it wasn’t too late.

And then through the roar he heard the counter girl’s voice.

“Vanduyne? I’ll check.”

John grabbed the shelf to steady himself. It was him!

Snake was here! He was picking up the pills.

He fought the urge to peek over the display to get a look at him… but his need overwhelmed him. Just one look. He had to know what this bastard looked like.

He turned his head just enough to frame the prescription counter between a pair of Easter baskets atop the display. Two people stood there—an elderly, blue-haired woman, and a stocky guy in a hooded jogging suit. John doubted Snake was an old lady.

As he watched, the girl at the counter handed a white paper bag to the jogger. John noticed he was wearing gloves.

Snake… that was him. He could have been Elvis for all that was visible between the beard, the sunglasses, and the hood. But that was Snake. Had to be.

John felt his weakness of a moment ago fade as hammer blows of rage began to pound through him. The son of a bitch who’d kidnapped Katie was twenty feet away. If he could get his hands on him, even if only for a few minutes, he knew he could make him talk. Oh, yes, a couple of minutes with John and Mr. Snake would tell him everything… everything…

A small part of him was appalled at the savagery surging through him, but mostly he reveled in the fantasy. Which was all it was. Snake wouldn’t be working alone. Couldn’t be. He’d have at least one accomplice, maybe more. If John harmed so much as a hair on this guy’s head, the consequences to Katie could be horrific.

So was this all he could do? Stand here and watch this monster waltz out the door onto K Street and vanish into the afternoon? Christ, he ached for someone to turn to, someone who’d know what to do.

He wanted to call Bob Decker and ask him—kidnapping wasn’t Secret Service business, but Decker had to know a helluva lot more than John.

He watched the jogger take his change and head for the door. Before John could think it over, he found himself following him.

What am I doing? a voice screamed inside his head. Good question.

No heroics, he told himself. No chase. No cat and mouse. Just want to see where he’s going. I’ll stay way back, out of sight. He’ll never know I’m behind him. If he gets in a car and drives off, I want to see the color, make, and model, want to memorize the license plate. But that’s it. I’m not going to hop into my own car and trail him.

But if he walks, I will follow him. This particular drugstore was his choice. Why? Because he’s holding Katie nearby? If that’s the case, I want to know. I’ve got to know.

He followed the jogger out to the. sidewalk and watched him stroll toward 17th Street. The rage was still roiling within, the savage just under the skin struggling to break free, but John was keeping himself under control.

He gave the jogger thirty yards, then followed.

29

What the hell?

Snake stood across the street from the CVS and gaped at the guy who came out after Paulie.

He’d watched the drugstore for a while before Paulie arrived and saw no signs of surveillance. No signs of activity after Paulie went in. That would be the giveaway— if the place was wired for a trap, things would start happening when Paulie asked for the Vanduyne prescription.

But nothing. Paulie came out and took off on a prearranged route while Snake hung back and watched to see if anyone tailed him.

And goddamn, somebody did.

Vanduyne.

“Shit!” The word hissed through his clenched teeth. Was the guy stupid? What did he think he was doing?

And then Snake relaxed. If nothing else, Vanduyne’s presence proved that he hadn’t called in the Feds. No way they’d let him near that drugstore if they were involved. So… he was out here on his own. What a fucking cowboy. What was he going to do, follow Paulie home and rescue his little darling?

Fat chance.

Snake knew Paulie’s route would take him around Farragut Square, and then to the Farragut North Metro station.

He hurried to a bus stop at the top of the square and hung there until Paulie came by. He saw Paulie’s eyes flick his way but he gave no sign that he recognized Snake.

Fifteen seconds later, Vanduyne came by. His eyes were fixed straight ahead on Paulie’s back like he was the only other person on the street.

Snake got a good look at those eyes and didn’t like what he saw. He was going to have to do something about the doc. Now.

But what?

His mind racing furiously, he gave Vanduyne a few yards, then fell into step behind him. As planned, Paulie entered the Metro station. Vanduyne followed, and Snake brought up the rear. The rush hour hadn’t hit yet, so it was still fairly empty. As Vanduyne hung back, hugging a wall, watching Paulie buy a ticket. Snake came up close behind him.

He had to make his move now. And he had to be careful. No telling what kind of shape Vanduyne might be in—physically or emotionally. A guy who showed up at that drugstore could be capable of anything. He might go off like a screaming bomb. And the last thing Snake wanted was a scene in a downtown Metro station.

He reached out toward Vanduyne. Careful… careful…

30

John almost cried out when he felt the fingers close on the back of his neck and the voice whisper from somewhere behind his left ear.

“Freeze, asshole. Don’t even think about turning around. You see my face, you’re dead. And so’s your brat.” John reached out a wildly trembling hand and slapped it palm open against the nearby wall for support. To passersby they probably looked like a pair of friends, one sick, the other comforting him. If they only knew.

Oh, Christ, he’d done it now. He’d screwed up everything! Poor Katie! They were going to kill her and it was all his fault! He tried to speak but his throat was locked. All he managed was a hoarse croak. He tried again.

“Please… listen—”

“No!” The hand squeezed the back of his neck, the whisper grew harsher. “You listen! You’re one fucking idiot, you know that? You want your kid dead? Is that what you want?”

“No! Oh, please, no!”

“Then why were you following my man?” The pressure on the back of his neck increased.

“Why?” my man…

This was Snake, not the guy in the jogging get up. This was the one he had to convince to take good care of Katie. John squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated everything on his words. He had to get through to this… this animal.

“Because she means so much to me. She’s all I have in this world that matters. She’s my child. Can you understand that? She’s my daughter and she’s little and she’s defenseless and I’m responsible for her. If anything happens to her, it’s my fault. And if anything… really bad happens to her… I don’t think I can go on living. Do you see? Does that make any sense to you?”

“Not a bit. Doc,” said Snake.

The utter flatness of the voice sent a blast of cold despair through John. The emotions he’d expressed were incomprehensible to this man. He might as well have been speaking Swahili.

“And you know what else doesn’t make sense to me?” Snake said. “You disobeying and spying on my man. You know what that means, don’t you?”

Panic surged through John. He didn’t know and didn’t want to know.

“I haven’t called anyone or told anyone!” He began babbling. “Not a soul! Just as you said! But I have to know, don’t you understand? Coming down here was a crazy thing to do, but that’s what not knowing if Katie’s alive or dead is doing to me! It’s making me crazy! You’ve got to believe that!” A long pause followed. John held his breath, waiting.

Finally Snake spoke.

“Well, we don’t want you going crazy, now, do we. We wouldn’t want that.” The hand released John’s neck. “You freeze there, Doc. You stay facing that wall and the only thing you look at is your watch. You wait here ten minutes before you so much as turn your head.”

“But Katie—” A sharp jab in his back cut him off.

“Not another fucking word, you hear?”

Miserable, John nodded. He felt so helpless. Christ, if only he had the guts to turn around and grab this guy and throttle Katie’s whereabouts out of him. But that might spell the end of Katie… if she wasn’t already— He heard footsteps moving away from him, heading back toward the escalator. He pushed back his jacket sleeve and looked at his watch: 4:11. He’d have to stand here until 4:21 while Snake and his accomplice got away.

And then he heard a voice shout two words from over by the escalator: “Maggie Simpson!” At first they didn’t register. Was that Snake or someone else looking for— Maggie Simpson! The little pacifier-sucking girl from Katie’s favorite TV show. Katie loved her! That could only mean… the only way they could have found out…

She’s alive! Katie’s alive! John clamped his hands over his eyes and wept with relief.

Snake listened to Vanduyne’s sobs, watched his shoulders quake as he leaned against the wall and bawled, then he stepped onto the escalator and rode it to street level.

Snake hadn’t wanted to tell him, had wanted to let him suffer for being such a jerk, but then he’d reconsidered. If not knowing about his kid was really making Vanduyne nuts, then it was good business to tell him. Otherwise, the guy was a loose cannon. Who knew what crazy thing he’d try next?

And this guy had a crazy streak a mile wide. Sure, he was back there crying like a baby now, but Snake had an uneasy feeling he’d be making a big mistake if he wrote off that guy as a wimp. He’d sensed something dangerous at the bus stop as Vanduyne had passed by on Paulie’s tail. Something in his eyes. Feral. Like some sort of predator. Hard to match that up with the sob sister downstairs, but the guy’s eyes hadn’t been lying.

Snake slammed his fist against the escalator’s rubber hand rail. That’s why you never snatch a kid. Adult to adult, it’s one thing… a snatch is the cost of doing a certain kind of business, a price they pay for not being careful. The packages lick their wounds and slink away, poorer but wiser.

But involve a kid and you’re on a whole other level. You tap into something primal. You wind up dealing from a different deck. Suddenly everybody’s taking it personally. And that’s when people became unpredictable… dangerous. Snake didn’t understand it but recognized it when he saw it. And he sure as hell had seen it in Vanduyne’s eyes.

So he’d told him about Maggie Simpson. To calm him down. Make him more predictable. He starts thinking his kid is dead, pretty soon he decides he’s got nothing to lose—a very bad situation all the way around.

Up on the sidewalk he checked his watch. He’d wasted too much time jerking around with Vanduyne. He’d left his car at the Mayflower, so he started jogging up Connecticut Avenue. He’d have to hustle if he was going to make the meeting with Salinas.

He thought about Vanduyne again. Before this was over, he was going to need a persuader.

31

As planned, Paulie stepped onto the Metro train and waited until the platform emptied; then he stepped off again. And watched. No one else got off. He watched the doors close and the train slide away into the dark gullet of the tunnel.

All right! Nobody following him.

He headed back up to street level. He’d been twitchy as a strung-out crackhead since he’d walked into that drugstore, half-expecting a gang of feds to jump him as soon as he asked for those pills.

He checked his pocket to make sure he had the drugstore bag. A lot of risk to get that little vial. But things had worked out okay. Better than okay. He’d hit Snake up for some cash to cover the jogging suit and the prescription, and a little extra to keep the home fires burning.

He checked his beeper in the other pocket. The readout said no calls. Which reconfirmed that he hadn’t been followed—Snake was to have beeped him if he’d spotted anyone on his tail. So everything was cool. He felt the tension ooze out of him.

He passed a guy leaning against a wall, looking for all the world like he was crying. Maybe he was sick. Or drunk.

Which gave Paulie an idea. Why not pick up a little bubbly as a gift for Poppy? She was all strung out babysitting the kid. She liked champagne and a bottle might get her to lighten up a little.

Yeah. Great idea. Buy her a goddamn magnum. Buy her two.

32

It took Snake a while, but he finally found a parking spot off M Street within half a block of Il Giardinello—he needed his car close by. He opened the glove compartment and started the tape recorder, then snapped his fingers in front of his chest. The mike in his shirt button picked up the sound and the needle on the receiver jumped. All right. All systems go—as long as he didn’t get too far away.

Snake walked around Georgetown a little before approaching the restaurant—just to be sure no one was tailing him. What’s the big attraction in owning a restaurant? he wondered as he approached the kitchen door. Actors, comedians, jocks, TV geeks—they all seemed to want one. Why? Looked like a royal pain in the ass. He checked his jacket buttons and his lapel pin, then knocked.

One of Salinas’s guards, a beefy guy named Llosa with dark skin and thick, Indian features, let him in. Snake handed him his .45 but the guy patted him down anyway. Satisfied that Snake wasn’t going to murder his boss, he led him to the back office.

“Miguel!” Salinas said, from his recliner. His beige silk suit was wrinkled where it bunched around his rolls of fat, and his gold-toothed smile was humorless. “You’re late!” Mr. Fatso Drug Lord didn’t like to be kept waiting?

Tough. Snake wasn’t about to incite Salinas, but he wasn’t going to kiss his ass either.

“Had to arrange to get some medicine for the kid,” Snake said pointedly. “You know, the kid no one knew was sick? Took me longer than I’d anticipated.”

“But it is all taken care of, no?”

“Yeah. All taken care of.”

“Excellent!” Now his smile was genuine. “Alien, pour our friend a drink.

Scotch, right?”

“Right. A little soda.”

“Give him the good stuff.” Salinas’s financial butt boy hopped to the task.

“We’ve got some beautiful sixty-year-old MacCallan single malt here,” Alien Gold said. “Cost Carlos thirteen big ones at auction.”

Thirteen grand for a bottle of Scotch? Now that was conspicuous consumption. Snake glanced around. Just like the rest of this dive. Look at the furniture, all dark and heavy and intricately carved, with real Tiffany lamps and Persian rugs; the walls were worse, hung with heavy burgundy drapes and all shades of garish Colombian art.

And in among the paintings, a signed photo of Tricky Dick. Very weird.

Gold handed Snake his Scotch, neat. “I held off on the club soda,” he said. “You don’t want bubbles getting in the way of the taste of this stuff.” Snake bit back a sharp retort. No profit in being ungracious, but he wondered about a guy with an MBA acting as gofer.

“To the success of the project,” Salinas said, raising a glass of red wine.

They all drank. Snake smacked his lips around the sixty-year-old Scotch. Pretty good, but not worth five hundred bucks a pop.

“Alien,” Salinas said, wiping off his mustache, “give Miguel his next installment.” Gold bent and lifted a leather attache case. He handed it to Snake.

“You want to count it?”

“Not now,” Snake said. “I’ll count it later.” He smiled to make it clear he was joking.

Salinas chuckled and his gut shook like the proverbial bowl full of jelly. A round man, Salinas—a round face with a round mouth on a round body. His smile was all white and gold except for the space between his upper front teeth—a gap big enough to shoot watermelon pits through.

Always polite, soft-spoken, almost formal. Yet Snake knew that behind that jolly exterior hid a diamond-hard, laser-sharp mind. An obsessively security-conscious mind. He’d realized that the first time they’d met here.

Snake had recorded the conversation—he admitted to his own security hang-up—with a standard transmitter mike, but when he’d checked the tape, all he heard was thirty minutes of hiss. Which meant Salinas had a bug jammer in his office. A good one—randomly varying frequency and amplitude. But there were ways around that…

Snake took another sip of Scotch and dropped into a chair. “All right. I’ve got the kid. I’ve got her daddy dangling on a string. What’s this service he’s supposed to do?” Salinas looked at Gold.

“Alien, will you please excuse us?”

Gold looked hurt. “You don’t think you can trust me with this?”

“I think you can be trusted with anything. Alien. But I do not think you want to be trusted with this. Comprende?”

Gold stared at him a moment, glanced at Snake, then shrugged. “Okay. If that’s the way you want it.” He started for the door.

“It is not a burden you wish. Alien,” Salinas said, smiling solicitously.

“Fine. I’ll be at the bar.”

As the door closed, Salinas said, “He is upset. He thinks he should know everything about my business. And perhaps he is right. But in this matter, I am not so sure.” Snake was beginning to get an uneasy feeling about “this matter.”

“I believe your question,” Salinas said, “was what service do I expect Dr. John Vanduyne to perform?” He took another sip of his wine. After he swallowed, his smile was gone. His voice was coldly matter of fact. “I expect Dr. John Vanduyne to remove his old friend Thomas Winston from the White House.” Snake felt the Scotch glass begin to slip from his fingers.

“The P-President?” He’d never stuttered before in his life. “The President of the United States?”

Salinas nodded.

Snake had a strange, floating sensation. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. All along he’d known that the stakes in this job would be high—nobody offered you that kind of money just to put the screws to a doctor bureaucrat in HHS. He’d tried to figure the angle but couldn’t come up with any reason why Vanduyne would be so valuable.

The stakes were high, all right. Too high.

He opened his eyes. “Winston’s legalization thing… that’s what this is all about, right?”

Salinas nodded again. “This coward wants to ruin our business. Fifty billion dollars a year—gone.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that! You can understand why we cannot allow such a thing.”

“Yeah, sure,” Snake said. Fifty billion a year justified just about anything. What had he got himself into? “But how’s this Vanduyne going to solve your problem?”

Salinas smiled. “Vanduyne is President Winston’s personal physician. We will instruct him to administer a dose of chloramphenicol to his old friend.”

“Chloram—what?”

Salinas gestured to the pad on the table to Snake’s right. “Write it down.”

Snake spelled it out phonetically as Salinas repeated it. Klor… aw… PHEN… uh… call, then got the proper spelling from Salinas.

“What’s that? A poison?”

“No. That is the beauty of it. Chloramphenicol is an antibiotic. An old one that is rarely used anymore.”

Snake stared at the word on the sheet of paper in his hand. “I don’t get it.”

“One of the reasons chloramphenicol is rarely used is its effect on the bone marrow of a small percentage of patients.”

“What’s that?” Snake said.

“Like the atomic bomb on Hiroshima: The bone marrow stops producing blood cells. The condition is called aplastic anemia. I have never heard of it, but then, what do I know about medicine? However, I have educated myself over the past few months… ever since a certain source informed me that Thomas Winston almost died from aplastic anemia at age three. The cause was chloramphenicol.”

“So?”

“So, if he gets another dose, the same thing will happen: His bone marrow will go on strike. He will sicken. He may well die.”

“May die? What if he doesn’t?”

Salinas shrugged. “He does not need to die. I would prefer that he did, but at the very least he will be gravely ill, much too sick to attend the drug summit in The Hague. And if he survives, he will have a long recovery. Too long to continue in office. He will have to resign.”

“Which puts Robert Baldwin in the White House. What if he decides to push legalization too?”

Salinas smiled and shook his head. “We know Vice President Baldwin. We have him…” He made an elaborate gesture of slipping his hand into his jacket pocket.

“So why not just plug Winston?” Snake said. “Be a helluva lot easier and more efficient than this’may die’ crap. Then you know he’s out of office.”

“No-no,” Salinas said, for the first time leaning forward. He explained why la compania had discarded that idea.

Snake nodded, only half listening. Already he could see problems.

“Okay. Whacking him wouldn’t work. But what happens when Vanduyne gets his kid back and tells the world he was forced to give Winston the chlor-whatever it’s-called? Same result: Winston’s a martyr and you’re out of business.” Salinas smiled. “But he will not get his child back. At least not for long. Immediately after their joyous reunion, they will have a terrible accident.”

Snake went cold. “That’s not my thing.”

“I know it is not. I will arrange for that.”

“All right. But won’t whoever’s treating Winston put two and two together and figure he’s been dosed with this stuff?”

“Not unless Vanduyne tells them. The chloramphenicol will be long out of his system, and his doctors will not know about his previous bout of aplastic anemia.”

“Why not?”

“Because he himself removed it from his medical records years ago. Thomas Winston wanted a spotless medical history when he presented himself to the American public.”

“Then how do you—?”

Salinas smiled. “My dear Miguel, should it surprise you that I have excellent sources?”

“No,” he said slowly. “Not at all.” Snake was just beginning to grasp Salinas’s reach. The President’s announcement was only last night, yet he and Salinas had been planning this snatch for two months. Salinas had known all along and had been ready to pounce as soon as Winston publicly committed himself.

And he even knew what Winston had wiped from his medical history years ago. This guy had a dedicated T-3 line into the government—he was connected.

Salinas leaned back again. “So you see? Everything is arranged. It’s a perfect plan.” The reassurances rolled off Snake like a used car salesman’s promises, and the cold within him grew as he took stock.

Alien Gold, who knew all the intricacies of Salinas’s empire, had been sent from the room. That told Snake that Salinas was playing this hand very close to his ample vest. Maybe only he and his bosses in Colombia knew the real target. The only other people who’d know would be Snake and Vanduyne himself. And afterward, they planned to eliminate Vanduyne and his kid.

Which would leave only one loose end: “Miguel” MacLaglen and his two hirelings. How do you measure the lifespan of three people who know enough to bring down the Cali cartel? Nanoseconds sounded generous. And who would be the first to go? The know-nothing hirelings, or the guy who had worked out all the details with Salinas?

Snake tossed off the rest of the Scotch. He needed some antifreeze against the ice forming in his veins.

He glanced down at his shirt-button mike. I hope you’re working today.

First thing tomorrow, he’d be back with a little present for the big man—he hoped. But right now he had to concentrate on his next steps. This gig was going to be a real balancing act. Everything would have to go down by the numbers. If he screwed up, his insurance wouldn’t mean diddly.

He cleared his throat. “All right. What’s the next step?”

“That should be obvious, I think. First thing tomorrow you contact the honorable doctor and tell him that if he wishes to see his precious child again, he must give his friend and patient a hefty dose of chloramphenicol.”

“How’s he supposed to do that?”

“We will leave that up to him. He is a devoted father who wants his child back: He will find a way.”

“And what if—Let’s just say he refuses. What then?”

“You will tell him that if President Winston shows up at the Hague conference next week—”

“What’s so important about this conference?”

“As a symbol, it is of immense importance. It is there that he will place his legalization plan before the world community as U.S. official international policy. That must not happen. And so you will tell the doctor that if Winston arrives at the conference, you will kill his little girl… but not before you do some very nasty things to her. And as proof, you start returning his daughter one piece at a time. I believe you have used that method before.”

Snake nodded. “It’s very persuasive. I’ve never had to send more than one piece.” Antsy as Vanduyne was, he was so wrapped up in his kid he probably wouldn’t need a persuader. Or maybe he’d need one just to keep him in line.

“Good. Then you know what to do. Contact me tomorrow after you have spoken to Dr. Vanduyne.”

“I’ll come by personally,” Snake said. “It may not be something I want to discuss over the phone.” But he intended to deliver more than just a report on Vanduyne.

“If you wish,” Salinas said. “Llosa will show you out. Good night.”

Snake guessed that meant the meeting was over. Fine. He’d had enough of Salinas for the evening.

On the way out he retrieved his pistol from Llosa and figured the beefy bodyguard would probably get the assignment to whack “Miguel” and his people.

Except Salinas would have to change that part of his plans.

33

Once out in the night air, the enormity of what he was involved in body slammed Snake full force. He staggered out of the alley and looked up and down M Street.

I’m going to put the President—the President of the United fucking States—out of business. Maybe even off him. I’m going to be changing the course of history. Me!

But not only did he have to keep a close eye on what was going on in front of him, he had to watch his back as well. Much as he loved adrenaline, this might be too much of a good thing. But dammit, he loved this feeling.

And tomorrow it would get even better. Tomorrow he’d put it to the doc that he was going to have to choose between his daughter and his old friend… his kid and the leader of the free world. How cool was that?

Yeah, if he could come through it all in one piece, this gig might just ruin him for anything else. Where could he play again for stakes this high? This was it: the mother of all buzzes. He had to soak up every last drop.

34

“That poor child!” John held his mother and let her sob against his shoulder.

The reversal of roles—the parent crying on the child’s shoulder—unsettled him. He’d never seen her like this, not even when his dad died.

“Don’t worry, Ma. Katie’s going to be fine. We know she’s alive. That’s the important thing. She’s alive and we’ll keep her that way. I’ll find out what they want from me, and whatever it is, I’ll do it. Then we’ll get her back.”

“Oh, that poor child,” she said. “That poor, poor child.”

She’d been repeating the phrase endlessly. She was beginning to sound like a stuck record and that worried John. He couldn’t have her going off the deep end now, not when he needed to focus every fiber of his being on getting Katie back.

“She’s tougher than we realize, Ma. We all are. We got through everything else, we can get through this. They picked up her Tegretol, so at least we know she’s getting her medication.” He hoped that was true, prayed they hadn’t picked up the pills simply for show.

Please, he thought, whoever you are, follow the directions on that bottle. She’s got to have her Tegretol twice a day. If she doesn’t get it—

“That poor, poor child!”

35

Paulie lay on his back and stared into the darkness of the second bedroom as Poppy dozed with her head on his shoulder. Had this been a great night or what?

He’d come back from the drugstore run with two pizzas and a couple of magnums of Cook’s champagne. So it wasn’t imported and it wasn’t expensive—so what? He’d guzzled both ends of the price range and got just as looped either way.

The goodies had worked their magic. Poppy really lightened up when she saw that he’d brought her a sauteed broccoli and eggplant pizza. She was into vegetables these days and that was her favorite combo. He’d bought a pepperoni pie for himself.

She fed some pizza to the kid, who requested pepperoni—good choice, kid—then they went to work on their own pies and started killing those magnums.

All of which had the desired effect: Poppy damn near fucked his brains out—once on the living room floor, and then again here in the bed.

Did it get any better than this? What more did he need beyond food, drink, a roof over his head, and Poppy in his bed? And soon they’d have a humongous wad of cash that, if they were smart about it, could last them a long, long time.

As he yawned he remembered the pills for the kid. They were still in his coat pocket. He’d forgot to tell Poppy about them. Something about giving the kid one twice a day.

He closed his eyes and let himself drift into sleep. He’d tell her tomorrow… tell her all about the pills in the morning…

p>

Thursday

1

“The United states now has over one million one hundred thousand prisoners in its jails. We have a greater percentage of our population behind bars than any other civilized nation in the world. And a good half of them are there for drug-related offenses. Think about it: five hundred thousand people in jail for using drugs, each costing us an average of thirty thousand dollars a year to house them—fifteen billion dollars a year, every year, and rising. Some of them are in for life—life for growing marijuana. The average murderer only serves nine years. And we’re setting more and more of those murderers free to make room for pot smokers. Half a million Americans, most of whom have never harmed anyone but themselves, locked up—for what? For wanting to get high.”

John opened his eyes in the darkness. Had he been asleep? Heather Brent was on the TV in a replay of some of her remarks on The Larry King Show last night. He saw light seeping around the shades. He searched for the clock. The glowing red numbers said 7:02.

He sat up, massaging his eyes, his face. He must have fallen asleep watching the TV. The last time he’d looked, the clock had said 5:30. God knew, he needed sleep— physically and emotionally. Any respite from this incessant sick dread. He was exhausted, yet his mind wouldn’t quit. He’d tried to numb it with the early-morning parade of infomercials.

He staggered out of bed and down the hall. He stopped at Katie’s door for the dozenth time since he’d gone to bed, and looked in, praying he’d see her there.

It had all been a bad dream, right?

Wrong. Katie’s bed was empty.

He continued down the hall to the guest room and— again, for the dozenth time since he’d gone to bed— logged into the HHS network.

“Come on,” he whispered as the software wended its way toward his electronic mailbox. “Come on… be there.” He stood and stared at the screen. Why bother to sit? He wouldn’t be staying. Every other time he’d checked for e-mail he’d come up empty, and he expected nothing this time either. Too early. He didn’t see kidnappers as early risers.

And then he heard the chime from the computer’s speakers: He had mail.

Mail!

Slowly, shakily, John eased himself into the chair. He chose the read now? option and waited as the message was downloaded to his screen. His heart picked up tempo as he recognized the anonymous remailer heading.

He jumped down to the message.

Go to the phone booth at the northwest corner of Franklin Square.

Be there at 9:00 A.M. sharp.

Snake

That’s it? John hit page down a couple of times to see if there was more, but found nothing. He stared at the message.

Where the hell was Franklin Square? He’d never heard of it.

He rifled through the bottom drawer of the desk and pulled out the map of Washington he’d bought when he first came to town. The index guided him to a small park with its northwest corner at K Street and 14th—just a few blocks from the pharmacy that had filled Katie’s prescription yesterday.

Why couldn’t Snake simply have said K and 14th? What was he doing? Playing games? Toying with him? Yeah, probably. Maybe that was how he got his kicks.

But why a phone? Up to now Snake had done everything by e-mail. What was different about today? What did he have to relate by voice rather than print? No doubt the “service” he was to perform. A queasy feeling rippled through John’s gut. What in hell could they want from him?

He glanced at his watch. Plenty of time. A quick shower, force down a little food, and he’d head for downtown. He wanted to be at that phone booth well ahead of the call.

Before leaving the study he erased the message. No use letting Nana see it. The fewer details she knew, the better.

He felt his fatigue slipping away. The endless night of waiting was over. He was in motion again. But in what direction? He shrugged off the cold dread enclosing him in its grip. Whatever it was, he’d handle it. The important thing was the sense that he was one step closer to getting Katie back.

2

As Paulie rolled out of bed, his left foot tangled in the sheets and he landed hard on the floor. Half stunned, he shook the cobwebs out of his head and looked around.

He didn’t know where he was. All he knew was that Poppy was screaming his name like someone had taken a cattle prod to her. But she wasn’t here. She was some where else in the house. What house? Oh, yeah the Falls Church place.

Poppy screamed again and Paulie was on his feet, hurtling into the front room. Empty. He lunged into the guest room and found her standing over the package’s bed, whimpering and crying. She turned and threw herself against him. “She’s having a fit, Paulie!

What’s wrong?” Paulie stared at the kid. Her hands were still tied to the bed frame, just as they’d left her, but the rest of her was flopping around on the bed like a beached fish. Her breath was hissing in and out between her clenched teeth and her eyes were rolled back into her head, leaving only the whites showing. He’d never seen anything like this.

“Make her stop, Paulie!” Poppy was saying, her voice going from a whimper to a scream. “Please make her stop!” And then it was like something out of The Exorcist: the kid gave out this high-pitched sound somewhere between a growl and a scream and arched her back until only her heels and the back of her head were touching the bed. She stayed that way for God knew how long, until Paulie was afraid she was either going to float off the bed or break in two. And then suddenly she dropped flat and lay still.

“Oh, God!” Poppy whispered. “Oh, God, Paulie, is she dead?” She sure as hell looked dead—pale as a ghost, not moving, not even breathing. He was almost afraid to get near her, but someone had to check her.

As he stepped forward he was pushed aside by Poppy who dropped down on her knees next to the bed. She had her hands up in the air, waving them around like some holy roller at a prayer meeting. She looked afraid to touch her.

Finally, she brought her hands down and touched the kid. She grabbed her shoulders and began shaking her.

“Katie! Katie! Wake up!” Then she pounded on the kid’s chest. “Breathe, dammit!” The kid shuddered, coughed, then took a breath.

“Thank God!” Poppy said. “Here. Help me untie her.” As she leaned across the kid, she stopped and felt around. “Oh, Jesus. She’s wet herself.” Paulie loosened the cord around one wrist while Poppy worked on the other. The skin was bruised and scratched from all that violent yanking. Poppy massaged the wrist she’d untied.

“What happened, Katie?” she said. “Are you okay?” But the kid only stared blankly past Poppy. She looked looped.

Poppy looked up at him. “She’s not gonna start again, is she, Paulie? Tell me she’s not gonna start again.”

Paulie watched Poppy, stunned. He’d never seen her like this. Usually she was so cool, except when she got mad. But now… man, she was a freaking basket case.

“Easy, Poppy,” he said, speaking slowly, softly. “Just calm down. She’s going to be all right.”

“How do you know that?” she said, her voice rising. “What’s wrong with this kid, Paulie? Did Mac tell you anything?”

Christ, the pills! He felt like a total asshole.

“Yeah,” Paulie said. “As a matter of fact, that’s why he called me out yesterday. To get her some pills. She’s got epilepsy.”

“What?” She rose to her feet, and faced him, her face as pale now as the kid’s. And her eyes wide… and very strange. “She’s got epilepsy and you didn’t tell me?”

“Hey, I only found out about it yesterday afternoon. Snake didn’t find out himself until yesterday. But it’s okay. I got pills for her.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She was talking through her teeth now. “Why didn’t you give her any?”

“Hey, well, you know how it was last night. I came home and we ate and drank, then we got it on and I forgot.” Poppy closed her eyes. She looked ready to explode.

“Get them. Give them to me now!”

“Hey, listen—”

“NOW!” Paulie hurried into the front room for his jacket. He knew he was in a bad position here. Not a leg to stand on. Not even a freaking toe. He’d fucked up royally. Bad enough Poppy was doing a number on him, but if Mac found out…

He got the bottle and handed it to her, then watched her face go from white to red as she read the label. “It says one tablet twice a day, Paulie! She was supposed to have one last night, goddammit!”

Suddenly she was on him, flailing away at him with her fists, pounding on his chest like it was a conga drum. “You bastard! You stupid goddamn son of a bitch! You lousy—!”

He grabbed her wrists and shook her. “Cool it. Poppy! You’re acting like a nut! What the hell’s wrong with you?”

She pulled free of him and turned back to the kid. “Because she could start in like that again. And again and again and again and never stop! And then she’ll die! All because you’re so goddamn stupid!”

“Hey, look. I didn’t think—”

“We’ve got to get one of these into her,” she said.

“All right, then. Let’s do it.”

She glanced at him and nodded. She looked sane again. At least for the moment.

Turned out the pills were chewable, but so what? The kid was out cold. She wasn’t going to be chewing anything.

Poppy took the bottle into the kitchen and tried to crush a pill with the flat of a butter knife, but her hands were too shaky.

“Gimme,” Paulie said after she messed up a third time.

He crushed the sucker on the first try and looked up at her, hoping for a little smile, or maybe a nod of approval. But her stare was still icy, with no sign of a thaw.

“Do another,” she said.

“Bottle says she’s only supposed to get one.”

“I’m making up for the one she didn’t get last night.”

Shit. Bad enough being in the doghouse, but worse when you know you belong there. He crushed the second.

Poppy half filled a shot glass with water and dissolved the powder. But getting the mixture into the kid was another story. She wouldn’t wake up.

Finally they got the kid situated with Poppy cradling her head in her lap. Paulie pried her jaw open while Poppy dribbled the mixture into her. The kid coughed and gagged but Poppy held her head until she’d swallowed.

Paulie breathed a sigh of relief. “All right! She’s gonna be okay now. No harm done.”

Poppy glared at him. “You don’t know that.”

“Sure. She’s got the medicine—”

“Go away,” Poppy said. “Just leave me with her.”

Paulie wanted to tell her off, tell her she couldn’t talk to him that way, but it was like he wasn’t even there, like he’d vanished in a puff of smoke. Poppy had pulled the kid onto her lap and started rocking her back and forth, cooing in her ear like she was a little baby. She seemed to be in her own world with that kid.

He wandered into the front room. This was way too weird. He couldn’t have Poppy going off the deep end in the middle of a job. They had to pull together on this—at least till it was over.

I don’t get it, he thought, staring back into the guest room as Poppy began to hum to the kid. She always said she hated kids, and now she’s acting like she’s the kid’s mother or something.

3

John arrived at the northwest corner of Franklin Square at quarter to nine. No one was using the phone, but who knew how long that would last. Any minute now, one of the local pushers might commandeer it for the day.

To forestall that, John picked up the handset—it smelled like vomit—and pretended to punch in a call. Then he stood there with the greasy receiver to his ear, pretending to be in animated conversation while keeping the switch hook depressed with his free hand.

Around him, workers were spewing from the Metro’s MacPherson Square stop, and the homeless were beginning to shuffle from their hidey holes to begin the day’s panhandling chores. The sun climbed through the hazy air, warming the park and enhancing the rancid smell from the handset.

John’s stomach turned. The aftertaste of his quick cup of coffee sat on his tongue like swamp scum.

God, how long could he stand here and pretend to be in earnest conversation with nobody? Seemed like he’d been here all morning.

And then the phone rang, startling his hand off the switch hook.

“Hello!” he said. “This is Vanduyne.”

“Hey, that was quick.”

John recognized the voice: the one from the Metro station yesterday.

“I’ve been waiting. I promised to cooperate. I got your e-mail. You said to be here at nine, so here I am.”

“Tears all dried up?” The mocking tone made John want to lunge through the receiver, but he set his jaw. Why give Snake the satisfaction.

“Yes. What do you want to tell me?”

“Let’s not be in too big a hurry here. I’m going to send you to another phone.”

“Is this a game?”

A cold laugh. “Don’t worry. I’ve seen those movies too. No, just taking precautions. I’m sending you to another park—Lafayette Square. Know where that is?”

That one John did know. “Across from the White House.”

“That’s it. Northeast corner across from the VA Building. A mere four blocks from where you stand. Be there in five minutes.” The line went dead.

John checked his watch: 9:02. Four blocks in five minutes. He could do that walking backward, but he broke into a jog anyway. No sense in taking chances.

He reached Lafayette Square and found the phone in two minutes, but his heart sank when he spotted someone using it. A heavy woman in beige polyester slacks with a just say no!/winston must Go! button on her white polyester turtleneck was yakking away, one of the horde of protesters still thronging the square and marching up and down before the White House.

He waited an agonizing minute and a half, watching the time tick toward 9:07. And still she talked.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, “but I’m expecting a very important call on that phone in a couple of seconds.”

She glanced at him but said nothing.

“Please, ma’am. It’s very important.” She covered the receiver and glared at him.

“Yeah?” she said in a New York accent. “What’s this? Your office? Find another phone. They’re all over the place.”

“You don’t understand. I can’t go to another phone. I’m receiving the call on this phone.”

“Stop bothering me or I’ll call a cop.” That was the last thing he needed—but he had to get her off the phone. As she waved him off and started to turn away, he had an idea.

“Look,” he said, digging into his pocket. “I’ll pay you for that phone.”

Now he had her interest. “You kidding me?” He pulled out some of the cash he’d grabbed on his way out the door, found two fives, and waved them in her face. He watched her eyes narrow. She wasn’t thinking of holding him up for more, was she? He didn’t have time, dammit.

“Ten bucks for the phone, lady. Now or never.” As she stared at the bills, John thought, Take them, lady, before I rip that phone out of your pudgy little fingers and drop-kick you onto the White House lawn.

“You got a deal,” she said.

With those words, John reached past her and slammed his hand down on the switch hook.

“Hey!” she cried. “I didn’t say good-bye!”

“Deal’s a deal.” He snatched the receiver from her hand and replaced it with the two fives. “Thank you very much.” Then he elbowed her out of the way and took over the booth.

She waddled off, muttering about “men.” John didn’t care if she thought he was Attila the Hun—he had the phone.

Ten seconds later it rang.

“Vanduyne.”

“So, you made it. All right. Let’s get down to business. This is all very simple. We need you to perform a small service for us. You do that, you get your kid back.”

“A service. Yes. But what service?”

“Again, very simple. Nothing the least bit criminal. All you have to do is give a dose of medication to one of your patients.”

John leaned against the booth. “Patients? I’m not in practice. I think you’ve got the wrong man.” Could it be? Could this all be a horrible mistake?

“Really? How’s your sense of direction. Doc?”

“What do you mean?”

“I want you to face south. Can you do that?”

John glanced around. “I’m already facing south.”

“Good. What do you see?”

He saw the telephone. The booth was facing north, and he was facing the booth. He couldn’t mean— A chill of foreboding inched through him.

He stepped to his right and saw it. Beyond the square and the promenade, behind its wrought iron fence…

“The White House?” He had to force the words past his throat.

“You got it.”

“But…” The words and thoughts ground to a halt in his brain, frozen in the freon blasting through his arteries.

“No buts about it. Doc. You’re the President’s personal physician and you’re gonna give him a dose of antibiotic before the week is done.” John still could not speak. He could only stand and stare at the White House.

“You listening. Doc? If you don’t—”

“Yes, I know!” he blurted. He knew the ultimatum. He didn’t need to hear the details.

God, they’re after Tom.

He felt as if he were drowning. He groped for something, anything to keep him afloat. And one of Snake’s words popped to the surface.

“Antibiotic? Did you say antibiotic?”

“That’s right. Chloramphenicol.” He said it carefully. “You got that, Doc? Chloramphenicol.”

“Yes,” John said dully. “I got it.”

“You’ve heard of it?”

“Of course.” Chloramphenicol… an old-time antibiotic rarely used anymore except for typhoid fever and maybe an occasional meningitis. “But why… ?”

And then he remembered… maybe a dozen years ago, when Tom began setting his sights on the presidency, asking his old buddy John to comb his entire medical history for anything that might someday be used against him. While going through Tom’s pediatric records he’d found “NO CHLORAMPHENICOL” written in big red letters across the top of each sheet. He’d searched back and learned that little Tommy Winston had almost died of aplastic anemia at age three. The culprit: chloramphenicol.

John had mentioned it in his summary but did not consider it of any consequence. Tom’s campaign strategists thought otherwise. They said any sign of physical impairment—even potential impairment—could be damaging.

John thought it was ridiculous, and so did Tom, but he was paying for their expertise so he took their advice: Those old pediatric records became “lost.” Or so they’d all thought. How on earth had Snake or whoever he was working for unearthed them?

God, who cared? What mattered was what would happen to Tom if he had another dose of chloramphenicol.

His immune system was still carrying the antibodies that had caused all the trouble when he was three. They were like sleeping guard dogs now, penned up, quiet, forgotten. But they’d awaken and burst free the instant they sniffed a chloramphenicol molecule. Trouble was, these were mistrained antibodies. They attacked their master last time—blitzkrieging his bone marrow and shutting it down—and they’d do the same again if set free. Maybe worse this time.

Probably Tom would survive. Hematology and immunology had come a long way in the four decades and more since Tom’s first reaction—new drugs, bone marrow grafts, so many more treatment options were available. But people still died from aplastic anemia.

Tom could die.

He moved his mouth but no words formed. This was monstrous. They couldn’t ask him to choose between Katie and Tom, couldn’t expect him to—

“You still there. Doc?”

“No!” he said. The word exploded from him and he was aware of people nearby glancing his way. He lowered his voice. “I won’t do it.”

“Then you’ll never see your kid again.” Snake’s cold, matter-of-fact tone rocked John. He sagged against the phone booth.

“No. Wait. Please. He might die.”

“That’s the whole idea. Doc.”

“Yes-yes. But on the other hand, he might not die.” John’s mind was suddenly in high gear, looking for an angle, a way out, anything so he wouldn’t have to do this. “It didn’t kill him the first time, so there’s a good chance it won’t kill him this time.”

“Then you’ll have to give him another dose. And another. And another. Until he’s either dead or so sick he has to resign. One way or another, we want him out of office.”

“You can’t ask me to do this.”

“I already have.”

“I need some time.”

“Sure.” The word dripped with sarcasm. “Take all you want. Just make sure he’s too sick to make the drug summit next week.” The Hague meeting… that was when legalization would become official U.S. policy.

“So that’s what this is all about.” John looked around at the antilegalization protesters swarming around him. Were they involved? Were some of them watching him right now?

“Yeah, Doc. That’s what it’s all about. Your old pal President Winston shows up at The Hague, you can forget about ever seeing your kid again.”

“Oh, God!”

“And don’t think of trying anything cute, like having your buddy play sick. Believe me: We’re very connected. We’ll know. And that will end it for your little girl.”

“Please. I’ll pay you. I’ll sell everything I own and give you every penny, just don’t hurt Katie.”

“This isn’t Let’s Make a Deal, Doc. You either dose your pal or you don’t. What’s it going to be?”

John stood there paralyzed, staring at the C&P insignia on the phone while his numbed mind tried to formulate an answer. He had to say yes. If he didn’t Katie would die. But how was he going to deliver? How could he poison Tom?

As he was trying to frame a reply, a hand flashed in front of him and depressed the switch hook.

“What?” John jerked around and saw the polyester fat lady from before.

He ripped her hand off the switch hook and began shouting into the receiver. “Hello? Hello are you there? Hello?” All he heard was a dial tone.

He slammed the handset down on the hook and turned to the woman. He fought the rage swelling inside him. He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry, he wanted to rip her head off.

“Do you know what you just did?”

“I want my phone back,” she said, waving a bill in front of her and chattering like a machine gun. “Every other phone around here’s taken, so I want mine back.”

“You cut off my call!”

“So? You cut off mine. Fair’s fair. Now here’s five bucks back. I figure I should keep half the money because I let you use the phone but—”

John felt his lips pulling back from his clenched teeth. If half of him wasn’t praying for Snake to call back, he’d be grabbing the handset and shoving it down her throat.

“Get out of here,” he said in a low voice.

Her chatter cut off. She took a faltering step back.

“Hey. What’s eating you?”

He leaned toward her, still speaking through his teeth, enunciating with slow precision. “Get away from me or I will kill you.” He’d never threatened anyone with harm before, let alone death. But right now he meant it.

She must have sensed that. She backed up another step, then hurried away. “I’m calling a cop!”

John turned back to the phone. “Please ring,” he whispered. “Please call back.” He slammed his fist against the side of the booth. “Please!” But the phone remained silent. John waited in the morning sun, amid the milling people, clinging to the booth, a hand on each side, guarding it as if it were his personal property.

After five minutes he began losing hope. When fifteen minutes had passed, he knew Snake wasn’t going to call back, but still he hung on, waiting. He couldn’t leave.

He looked up and saw the polyester lady walking his way with a cop in tow. He couldn’t get involved with the police right now. What if Snake had someone watching him? If Snake got a report that he was seen talking to a cop, no telling what he might do. John released his grip on the booth, turned, and forced himself to walk away, to get lost in the crowd.

He told himself it was useless to stay by the phone. Snake wasn’t calling back. John’s best bet was to get to his computer and send Snake an e-mail explaining what had happened. The sooner, the better.

Still, in his soul, he felt as if he’d just abandoned his daughter in Lafayette Square.

4

He hung up!

Snake, sitting in traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue, still couldn’t believe it. John Vanduyne, M.D., supposedly this loving, devoted father, and he hangs up on the guy who’s holding his daughter. What the hell was he up to?

Snake had to admit he’d been rattled for a moment after the line went dead. He’d told him. Either you dose your pal or you don’t. What’s it going to be? And Vanduyne went and hung up on him.

After being so high last night, barely able to sleep, that had brought him down. He’d known this guy was going to be a problem.

Maybe it had been some sort of a reflex. After all, he’d verbally pole-axed Vanduyne with what he had to do to get his kid back. He had to smile. Hell of a choice, wasn’t it. Here was the stuff myths were made of: Choose between your old buddy, the leader of the free world, and your kid. Something almost cosmic about that. And Snake was calling the cosmic tune.

Except Vanduyne wasn’t dancing the right steps. Another example of the guy’s instability. He was a wild card.

But Snake knew just the thing to get him in line. He’d have Paulie take care of that…

Right after he met with Salinas.

Snake patted the audio cassette in his jacket pocket and swallowed. He’d be walking a very thin line in the next hour or so. This meeting had to be handled just right.

5

“And so, Miguel, how did the good doctor take the news?” Carlos Salinas sat behind his desk, leaning back in his enormous leather chair.

His suit was charcoal gray this morning. A small, amused smile curved under his mustache.

“Not well,” Snake said. He felt like pacing but forced himself to remain seated. He and Salinas had the office to themselves. No sign of Gold this trip. “We shook him up pretty good.”

“And you did not have to explain to him about his friend’s previous reaction?”

“Nope. He seemed to know all about it.”

“Bueno. So, how do things stand at this moment? He has agreed to our ultimatum?”

Snake debated telling Salinas the whole truth—about Vanduyne hanging up on him—but held back. He didn’t want Salinas to have the slightest doubt that he was in complete control.

“He’ll do it, but he’s a bit shell-shocked right now. I’ve decided to send him a little persuader to get him focused. By tomorrow morning he’ll be falling all over himself to get some of that chloramphenicol into Winston.”

“Excellent!” Salinas slapped his weighty thighs. He was grinning now. “Miguel, I am so very glad I put you in charge of this matter.”

You may not be so very glad in a minute. Snake thought. He cleared his throat.

Here goes.

“Speaking of’this matter,” he said, “it’s much bigger than I’d ever imagined.”

Salinas’s eyes narrowed. “I hope you are not going to ask for more money. We have a deal—”

Snake raised his hands, palms out.

“Absolutely not. A deal is a deal. No. What I’m saying is, this matter is so big that you might not want me around after it’s over and done with.”

“Yes,” Salinas said slowly, nodding and smoothing his mustache. “I can see how you might fear such a thing. But it is not my way.”

“Trouble is, I don’t know your ways. We haven’t known each other that long.”

“Miguel, if I killed everyone who did a job for me, I would have been out of business a long time ago.”

“Right, but this isn’t some routine pick-up-and-deliver gig. This is major league. This is the biggest thing you’ll ever do in your life, or I’ll ever do in mine. I just don’t want it to be the last thing I do in mine.”

“It is not you I am concerned about. Paul Dicastro and Poppy Mulliner, however…” It didn’t surprise him that Salinas knew their names— he seemed to know everything—but it bothered him.

“I can see how they’d be considered a liability. I just don’t want to be lumped in with them.” Salinas was staring at him—like a cobra eyeing a mongoose.

“I have a feeling that all this is leading somewhere.”

Snake reached into his pocket and pulled out the cassette. He leaned forward and placed it on Salinas’s desk.

“What is this?”

“Recordings of some of our conversations.”

Salinas’s smile was tight and grim. “That is impossible.”

“Because you have a bug jammer?” Snake said. “It worked on the tape I made of our first meeting—I got nothing but hiss. So I went out and found a filter that eliminated the interference.” He pointed to the tape. “I believe you’ll find your voice quite recognizable. Especially during last night’s conversation, when you explained the ultimate purpose of this endeavor.”

“Mierda!” Salinas turned a deep red as he slammed his fist on the desk and let loose with a string of curses in Spanish.

He won’t kill me, Snake told himself. I’ve got the kid, I’m hooked into Vanduyne. He needs me. He won’t kill me.

Across the desk, Salinas closed his eyes and calmed himself. Then he opened them and glared at Snake.

“I am insulted. We made a deal.”

“And I made a deal with my people that I’m probably not going to be able to hold to. Things change, right?”

“And you intend to blackmail me?”

“Absolutely not. I’m on that tape too, you know. I’m the guy who did the snatch and told Vanduyne what the ransom was going to be. The last thing in the world I want is for anyone to hear that tape. What I do want is to make sure that you have an ongoing interest in my good health. I’ve got a dozen copies and I’ve—”

“Twelve tapes! Chingate!” Actually only four more: another in his jacket, one hidden in his house, one in his safe-deposit box, and one with a lawyer. If Salinas found those, Snake wanted him to go crazy looking for the rest.

“They’re all safe. But if something happens to me, they go to the FBI, the DEA, the Secret Service, and so on. I know you folks own a lot of people, but when this shit hits the fan, nobody’s going to want to be downwind.”

Salinas continued to glare, saying nothing. Snake was sure he knew how difficult it would be for the feds to get a conviction on the basis of an audio tape, but at the very least they’d shut down his money-laundering business and make his life a nightmare. So Snake tried to mollify him. Even though he was protected now, this was not a man he wanted pissed at him.

“Hey, look. I can understand how you feel. You took all these elaborate, state-of-the-art precautions against anyone eavesdropping or bugging you, and you wind up on tape anyway. But this could save you in the future. Technology’s always changing. You’ve got to stay on the cutting edge if you don’t want someone to get the drop on you.”

Salinas said nothing, but he seemed to be cooling.

“And look at it this way: Knowing I’ve got this kind of life insurance will let me do a better job. I mean, I’m already juggling the kid and Vanduyne, and soon I’ll be dodging the entire federal government. I don’t want to have to keep looking over my shoulder wondering what you’re planning for me too. That could be very distracting.”

Salinas continued to stare. But no question, the rage was fading from his eyes.

Snake leaned forward and put on a smile. “And tell me the truth: If positions were reversed, wouldn’t you do the same thing?”

A little smile from Salinas now, and then a nod. Snake felt his muscles relax. You silver-tongued devil, you.

“I suppose you are right,” Salinas said with a sigh. “I cannot hold it against a man that he protects himself. And you are right. I will learn from this.” And then he frowned. “But I am hoping that you do not wish to extend the coverage of life insurance to your two helpers.” Snake thought about that. Here was a chance to save Paulie and Poppy. He’d be pushing it, but he had Salinas over the proverbial barrel.

And then he thought about the aftermath. Paulie and Poppy rich and getting stoked every day. One of them sees the story about Vanduyne and his kid getting wasted, how he was our dead or deathly ill President’s personal physician… wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to put it all together.

Could you trust a couple of loadies with something like that? Yeah, right. They’d be racing to see who could babble about it first. No, Salinas’s approach made the most sense.

Snake held Salinas’s gaze and shook his head. “No. This is just a personal policy. No group coverage.”

6

If Snake had felt high after leaving Il Giardinello last night, he was stratospheric now. He’d done it! He’d stared down the goddamn Colombian cartel. They blinked!

Or at least Salinas did. But that was enough. He’d sent the message and it had been received loud and clear: You don’t fuck with Snake.

He began punching the air—left-right-left—as he made his way to his car. He was Ali, he was Tyson. Float like a butterfly, sting like a cruise missile. When he reached the car he knew he was too wired to sit behind the wheel.

A car? A car? Even a fucking Concorde would be too slow right now!

He grabbed his laptop from the trunk and set off walking through Georgetown like he owned it. Up Wisconsin, then left toward G.U. along the cobblestone streets with their obsolete trolley tracks, past the brick-fronted town houses, and up to the campus.

The walk burned off enough adrenaline to allow him to seat himself in the library and plug into one of the computer jacks. He logged onto his account and checked his e-mail.

He grinned when he saw the letter from Vanduyne, a rush of pleading, whining, moaning how it was all a mistake and how they got cut off by accident and to contact him again right away and please-please-please don’t take it out on his dear little Katie.

Yeah, well, maybe it was an accident and maybe not. Maybe this was a game Vanduyne was playing. But Snake was boss. Even the Colombians knew that now. And Snake didn’t allow games, or even accidents.

He began typing a reply that would tell Vanduyne just that, then stopped. Nah. No reply. Let the pussy stew. Let him go crazy waiting for a reply. He’d get his reply.

Tomorrow morning.

In his mailbox—his real mailbox.

7

Poppy watched through the eyeholes of her mask as Katie drained the glass of milk.

“Want some more?”

Katie shook her head.

Poppy glanced at her watch. Three hours since the fit. The kid had woke up about an hour ago but still didn’t seem to be all there. Her color was better but her fine dark hair was all like tangled.

At least she hadn’t had another fit, thank God. And she wouldn’t, either, as long as Poppy had something to say about it.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Another shake of the head, then a sob. “I just want to go home.” Poppy slipped her arms around Katie and hugged her close.

“I know you do, honey bunch. And you’ll be going home real soon, I promise you.”

“But when?”

“I don’t know exactly, but it won’t be too long.”

“That’s what my Daddy always says.”

“When’s that?”

“When we’re in the car and I ask him how long till we get there, and he always says the same thing: ‘It won’t be too long now.’ Even if we just started out, he says, ‘It won’t be too long now.”

Poppy laughed. “Yeah, my Daddy used to say something like that, only he’d go, ‘Not much further now.’ I guess all daddies are alike.” Except mine’s dead.

She thought about Dad, how she’d heard about his heart attack six months after he was buried. And she still remembered Uncle Luke’s voice on the phone: “That wasn’t no heart attack. Your father died of a broken heart. And we both know who broke it, don’t we.” Yeah, she knew. Totally.

Katie pulled away and stared at her. “Why are you wearing a Minnie Mouse mask?”

“I told you how I can’t let you see my face, but I thought you’d like this one better than the Roseanne mask. You do, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And how about your new clothes?”

Katie looked down at her plaid shirt and Oshkosh overalls. “They’re okay, I guess.”

She’s right. Poppy thought. They’re okay. Barely okay.

She’d sent Paulie out for new masks and dry clothes and underwear. She’d given him the size and that was about it. He’d done good with the masks—Minnie for her and Mickey for him—but the clothes… “At least they’re dry.”

She reddened and looked away. “I’m sorry.”

Poppy grabbed her and hugged her again. “Don’t you be sorry! Don’t you dare be sorry! That wasn’t your fault. It was ours. We forgot to give you your medicine. That won’t happen again.”

What’s up with me? she wondered as she pressed that skinny little body close against her. She hated kids. Never wanted any, but now all she wanted to do was like hold and protect this one. It’s like I’m a different person.

She remembered waking up with a headache, and hearing this rattling and thumping coming from somewhere in the house. She’d tried to wake Paulie but he was like dead to the world. So she got up and went to see… and went to pieces when she found the kid in the middle of a fit.

Not the first time she’d seen a fit. God, no. She’d seen far more than her fair share and had hoped and prayed she’d never see one again.

“I promise you. Glory,” she whispered into her hair. “It’ll never happen again.”

Katie said, “My name’s not Glory.”

Poppy stiffened. Glory? Had she really called her Glory?

“You’re right,” she said quickly. “Of course it isn’t. What was I thinking?”

Was that what this was all about? Glory? Was Katie the kid Glory might have been? If she’d lived? She repressed a shudder. That was scary. And yet…

The phone rang in the other room. She left Katie on the bed and opened the door enough to poke her head through just as Paulie picked it up and said, “Yeah?” Had to be Mac.

“Yeah, she’s fine… Nope. No problems. Got the pill into her just like the directions said…”

Poppy caught his eye and glared at him through the mask. He shrugged, like. What else am I supposed to say?

Better say nothing, Paulie. Mac finds out you almost messed up his little package and he’ll be like all over you.

She was still pissed at Paulie. Really, how could one man be so stupid? He had the pills in his goddamn pocket. All he had to do was— She cut off the train. She got crazy every time she thought about it. Better to leave it alone.

But she was still royally pissed.

“What?” Paulie was saying. “Aw, come on! You gotta be shitting me, man!” Uh-oh. What else had gone wrong?

She saw Paulie glance at her but his gaze skittered away. He turned his back and lowered his voice, but she could see his shoulder muscles bunching up and knew he was arguing. He stole a second gun-shy look her way, then took the phone into the bedroom.

Obviously, Paulie and Mac weren’t seeing eye to eye about something. She wondered what it was. No matter. She’d find out soon enough. She closed the door and returned to Katie.

Took a long time, maybe fifteen minutes, before Paulie knocked on the door.

“You wanna come out here a minute?”

She slipped out the door, closed it behind her, and immediately pulled off the mask. Cool air felt great on her face. Hot and humid inside that plastic. She blotted the moisture off her face with her sleeve, then looked at Paulie. Jesus, he looked totally spooked. His eyes were darting all around the room, anywhere but at her.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“That was Mac.”

“Who else would it be. What’d he want?”

“He says the package’s father ain’t cooperating.”

“Ain’t cooperating? You mean he don’t want her back?”

“I don’t know exactly. Mac says he’s giving him a hard time.”

Poppy looked at the bedroom door. Jesus! Somebody steals your little girl and you haggle over the price? Like what kind of father does that?

“The son of a bitch.”

“Yeah. So…” Paulie was staring real hard at the floor. “So Mac wants us to send the guy a persuader.” Poppy froze, staring at Paulie, who was still looking at the floor. She’d been gut punched once, and that was how she felt right now. She thought she was going to puke. But she controlled it. And she controlled the urge to launch herself at Paulie and start screaming like a banshee. She controlled everything.

And slowly she turned to ice.

Then steel.

No one was going to hurt that little girl.

“Uh-uh,” she said softly. She kept her voice low, even. “Not a chance.”

Paulie’s head jerked up like he’d been slapped. He stared at her like she was a stranger. Obviously he’d expected a different reaction.

“Hey, Poppy, we gotta do it.”

“Really? Says who?”

“Mac. I told you—”

“Mac says, ‘Jump,’ and you say, ‘How high?’ That how it goes?”

“You think I want to do this? You think I want to hurt a kid? Christ, gimme a break! But this is Mac’s gig.”

“I don’t care if this is God’s gig—no one’s touching that kid.” She started to turn away but he grabbed her arm.

“Look. Mac wanted us to send the guy one of her fingers. I talked him down to a toe. A toe. Poppy! A freaking little toe! She’ll never miss it!”

Poppy wrenched her arm free. “Not a fingernail, Paulie! Not a hair! You got that?”

“It’s got to be done. Poppy!”

She went to the guest room door, turned, and faced him.

“Over my dead body.”

She could see that Paulie didn’t really believe her. How was she going to convince him? How could she stop him?

He took a step toward her. “With or without you, it’s gotta be done.”

“Through me first, Paulie. You’re gonna have to beat me to a total pulp before you get to her. I know you can do it. But will you do it? I hope not. I don’t think it’s in you. But if you do, you better kill me. That’s all I can say, Paulie—you better kill me. ‘Cause if you don’t, and you hurt that little girl, I’ll kill you. Some night when you’re sleeping, I’ll put a knife through your heart. That’s my promise: You hurt that kid and some morning real soon you’re gonna wake up dead.”

He stood and stared at her, his hands opening and closing at his sides.

“Christ! You’re really serious!”

She nodded. Yeah, she was. And that amazed her. She barely knew this little Katie and yet she was ready to die for her. What the hell was going on?

“You’re forgetting Mac, aren’t you?” he said. “We don’t do what he wants, we could all wake up dead. And then he can take any damn part of her he feels like.”

That shook her. Paulie was right. Mac wanted what he wanted. He was paying you, he expected you to take orders. Who knew what he’d do if they told him to shove his persuader.

Paulie ran both hands through his hair. “This is just great! I do what Mac wants, you’ll kill me. I do what you want, Mac kills me. How the fuck did I get into this?”

Poppy felt sorry for him. She was putting him in a real jam. She didn’t want to see Katie or Paulie hurt.

“There’s got to be like some way out of this,” she said.

“Yeah?” Paulie said. “Like how? Mac wants a piece of her to send to her father. He’s not going to settle for anything less.”

Poppy didn’t know where the idea came from—she just blurted it out: “All right. Send one of my toes.”

Paulie gaped at her. “Are you nuts? That’s not only crazy, that’s stupid. Like her father ain’t gonna know the difference. What’s happened to you. Poppy? What is it with you and this kid? I thought you hated kids.”

“I… I do,” she said. “But not this one.” Poppy leaned back against the door. Suddenly she felt miserable. Her ice and steel were melting away. She was all shaky inside.

“Can we call a truce?” she said.

“Sure.” Paulie had his hands on his hips and was walking around in circles. “But that’s not gonna help us when Mac calls back with the address of where I’m supposed to deliver his persuader. What do I tell him then?”

“We’ll think of something.”

He stopped and stared at her. He looked worried— real worried. “Don’t be so sure.”

“I think I need a hug,” she said, taking a small step toward him.

He continued to stare at her, then shook his head and opened his arms. He wasn’t smiling—she could tell he was a long way from that—but she really did need a hug.

She fell against him and clutched him to her.

“Don’t let’s fight, Paulie. We’re in this together, and together we’re bigger and better than Mac.”

“I ain’t so sure of that. One thing’s for sure, we ain’t meaner. And that’s gonna get us in trouble.”

“We’ll think of something.”

“We’d better.” He kissed the top of her head. “You make me crazy, you know that? You’ll be the death of me yet.”

Poppy clutched him tighter. Dear God, she hoped not.

8

Daniel Keane watched his grandson swing from rung to rung on the jungle gym and felt a little sick. Not because he feared he might fall. No, in this upscale Mclean, Virginia, playground, the ground under the slides and swings and jungle gym was padded. Danny had already fallen twice and bounced right back up again.

Little Danny—five years old, named after his grandpa, and full of boundless energy. A regular little monkey on those bars. But thinking of Danny and how precious he was to everyone who knew him led to thoughts of John Vanduyne’s little girl. And thus the nausea.

Dan knew her name… Katie… knew everything about her and her father. And he’d fed all that information to Carlos Salinas. Who used it to kidnap her.

Dan didn’t know for sure that it had been done, but he’d checked on Vanduyne yesterday and learned that he’d left his office almost immediately after arriving, and hadn’t been heard from since. Dan had a pretty good— and pretty sickening—idea what that meant.

That poor man. What he must be feeling.

Dan tried to imagine what it would be like to hear that someone had kidnapped Danny. He found it beyond comprehension.

And that little girl… the terror of being snatched from the street or wherever it was and kept prisoner by strangers. He swallowed back a surge of bile.

God, he hoped they were treating her all right, that they’d let her go unharmed when this was all over.

But he had no control over any of it. He’d fed the stuff to that human slug, Salinas, and that was it. Dan had made suggestions as to how to best put it to use, but the final decision was up to Salinas.

He tried to concentrate on Danny. This was a sort of farewell trip to his favorite park. Carmella was taking their daughter and the grandchildren to their Florida condo for a couple of weeks. Dan would have loved to go along, to sit in the purifying rays of the sun and try to forget what was happening here. But he had to stay. Especially now that Winston had dropped his decriminalization bomb.

And now, when the wheels were in motion and he couldn’t reverse them, he had to ask himself whether he’d do the same if he could go back and relive the past couple of months.

Yes. He doubted he’d change a thing. Because too much hung in the balance. This was so much bigger than the well-being of one little girl. A whole nation was at stake, a nation full of little girls like Katie Vanduyne… and little boys like Danny.

“Don’t blame me,” he whispered to no one.

Blame that lousy, spineless excuse for a president. The country was already in the toilet, but legalizing drugs would pull the plunger. Tom Winston couldn’t be talked out of this mad crusade—God knew how many people had tried—so he had to be taken out.

Even if it meant colluding with people Dan despised more than the President. It was, quite literally, a deal with the Devil, and if he burned in hell for it, so be it. Somebody had to stop Winston.

Daniel Keane sent up a prayer—not for himself, but for that little girl. He prayed that this crazy, brass-balled scheme would work out with no one getting hurt…

Except the President.

9

The computer screen said no mail.

John pounded his fist on his thigh. He’d have much preferred to slam it on the desk, but that would bring his mother running, asking, “What’s wrong? Has there been any word? Do you think she’s all right? Why aren’t they telling you what they want?” And a million other questions.

He’d lied to her on his return from Lafayette Square, telling her the kidnappers hadn’t phoned him, that he’d stood around looking stupid, waiting for the phone to ring.

A good lie. It kept Nana’s anxiety at its current, just bearable level.

And it explained why he’d rushed in and gone straight to his computer to send off e-mail to the kidnappers. As far as Nana knew, it was to ask why they hadn’t called. In reality, it was to explain why they’d been cut off and to arrange another call.

A lie was the only way. How could he tell Nana what they wanted him to do? And worse, that the call had been interrupted by some imbecilic woman in the park?

She’d go to pieces.

The phone rang.

John stared at it. Who was it this time? Phyllis again? He’d called in sick this morning, telling her he had a bad case of gastroenteritis and didn’t dare get far from a toilet. Highly unlikely he’d be in tomorrow either. See you Monday.

But that hadn’t stopped her from calling about confirming this meeting with that committee and luncheons with various advocacy groups and a number of speaking engagements. Somehow he’d managed to sound coherent, though he didn’t know how long he could keep it up. If this was Phyllis again he’d have to tell her whatever it was would have to wait. He was too sick to think.

He picked up, but instead of Phyllis he heard Terri’s voice.

“You don’t sound too sick.” He had to think a minute. Had he told her about it? He was new to this lying thing. Had to keep his stories straight. And keep his voice light.

“You should be here listening to my intestines rumble. But how’d you know?”

“I called your office. Phyllis said you were out with an intestinal flu. Anything serious?”

“I don’t think so. Probably one of those two-or three day viruses.”

“Then I suppose our date’s off tonight, huh?”

John fumbled for a reply. Date? What date? Oh, God. He was supposed to have dinner with Terri tonight. He’d completely forgot.

“Food? Don’t even mention it. I’ve been holding off on calling you, hoping the symptoms would ease up, but they haven’t. I was just about to pick up the phone.”

“Want me to come over and pat your hand and put cold compresses on your head?”

“That sounds great, but I’m going to try the sleep cure. And besides, I don’t want to expose you to this. Believe me, you don’t want what I’ve got.” No one in the world wants what’s ailing me.

But he wished to God he could sit her down and open up to her. He wished he could share this crushing burden with somebody. If he could bounce a few ideas off Terri, and get some feedback, maybe he could come up with a way out of this.

But how safe would it be to burden her with this? With Terri knowing the President was a target and her seeing Bob Decker or other Secret Service agents a dozen times a day, how long could he expect her to keep mum?

No. He had to keep this to himself—all to himself.

He fended off her offer of chicken soup and rescheduled their dinner for next Tuesday, then got off the phone.

Next Tuesday. How would he get out of that? This virus story would carry him through the weekend. Come Monday morning, he’d have to come up with something new.

He checked for e-mail again. And again, nothing.

Damn!

He glanced at his watch. When had he got back this morning? 10:30, maybe? Here it was 4:30. Six hours since he’d e-mailed Snake and still no reply. Had he received the message? Why wasn’t he replying? Was it over? Had they decided John wasn’t going to do what they wanted and so they were disposing of Katie?

He couldn’t think about that. No, that couldn’t be. And that wouldn’t be. Snake was playing games. Letting him twist in the wind awhile before he made contact again. Well, he was twisting, all right. And damn near strangling with worry.

But when Snake did make contact, what would John tell him? Could he agree to poison Tom?

Yes. What choice did he have but to tell Snake what he wanted to hear? Say all the right things, then find a way to fake it.

But how, dammit? Snake had already warned him: “Don’t try any tricks. We’ll know.” John had to respect that. Anyone who could ferret out Tom’s reaction to chloramphenicol had world-class sources.

But there had to be a way. If John could relax just long enough to get his thoughts together, he knew be could come up with a way to save Katie and Tom.

10

“Yes!” Poppy said.

She circled the article and pulled the sheet free of the rest of the newspaper. As she rose from the kitchen table she felt her spirits lifting. She’d spent the day in some kind of long dark tunnel, and now she’d spotted a light at the end.

She stepped into the front room and found Paulie sitting and watching the phone. He’d stationed himself on the inside end of the couch in the corner, as far as possible from the phone, like he was afraid it was going to come to life and bite him or something.

“You finally finished with your reading?” he said. Snarled was more like it. “You up to date on all the local news now?” She’d sent him out for all the local papers the Washington Times, the Post, the Banner, everything available in the 7-Eleven. And then she’d begun combing them.

“Yeah, I’m finished,” she said.

She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning like an Appleton. She’d found the solution to all their problems. Okay, maybe not all, but at least the major one that was dogging them right now. She was so damn proud of herself she wanted to dance. But first she wanted to have some fun with Paulie. He’d been no help at all, so he totally had it coming.

“Good,” he Said. “Now maybe you can think of some thing I can tell Mac when he calls. And he’s gonna call any minute, you can bet your sweet dimpled ass on that.”

“Oh, I’ve got no doubt at all he’ll call.”

“So what do I tell him? ‘Sorry, Mac. No persuader on this one. Poppy won’t let me.’ Right. Next thing you know he’ll be busting down that door.”

“You just tell him everything’s under control and the persuader’s ready for delivery.”

He made that sour face he did every time he thought he heard something stupid. “Oh, right. And when it’s not delivered? What then?”

“Oh, don’t worry. You’ll deliver it. Right on schedule.”

He sat and stared at her a second or two, eyes bugged, jaw dropped. Oh, this was good. It was all she could do to keep from busting out laughing. Then he jumped to his feet, arms spread.

“How, Poppy? For Chrissake, have you gone crazy? Where am I gonna get a little girl’s toe?” Okay. Enough was enough. She shoved the paper toward him.

“Here.” As he grabbed it and stared at it, she said, “I circled what you want.” He read some, then looked up at her. “But this is… I’ll have to…”

She shrugged. “Who’s the best B-and-E guy around if it ain’t you, Paulie?” He didn’t seem to want to argue about that, so he kept on reading. Finally he looked up at her and the half angry, half-worried look he’d worn all day had changed.

He actually smiled—just a little.

“You know something. Poppy. I think this might work.”

“I know it will.”

He was grinning at her now—staring, nodding, and grinning. “You’re pretty smart for a girl.” She punched him on the arm.

“Smart? I’m totally brilliant!”

He hugged her and they laughed. He seemed proud of her, and to tell the truth, she was pretty damn proud herself. When was the last time she’d felt this way?

Then he pushed her to arm’s length, suddenly serious.

“But Mac can never know. Even after this is all over, we can never let Mac even suspect what we did.”

“After this is all over, we’re never gonna see Mac again. Right?”

“Right. When he calls, we ain’t home.” Poppy hugged him. She felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders. She put her lips against his ear.

“Better get going.”

11

It took Paulie longer than he’d figured to find the place. After all, he didn’t know diddly about Arlington, Virginia, but people were pretty helpful when he asked for directions, and he only got lost twice. He passed a Home Depot along the way and picked up a sturdy pair of pruning shears. The sweet young thing at the check-out counter set him on the right course for the final leg of his journey to the Lynch-MacDougal Funeral Home.

Two wakes were in progress. Paulie figured he was pretty much dressed for mourning, being all in black. He wandered in, looking appropriately somber, and checked out the place’s security system—or, like they said in the movies, “cased da joint.” He felt very much at home looking for electric eyes, motion detectors, window magnets. Breaking and entering used to be his bread and butter before he started baby-sitting for Mac.

Still came in handy when the till ran low between gigs. Clean work. You get in when the place is empty, boost whatever’s lying around, and get the hell out. In and out. No fuss, no muss. You go in empty, you come out with some cash and jewelry.

This time he’d be coming out with a toe. Weird, man.

He found the control panel near the back door and it looked like a single-zone setup. The whole security system was pretty basic: windows, doors, and that was about it. Nothing that would keep him out if he’d had his tool kit—but that was back in Brooklyn. He needed an edge here.

He checked the name in the newspaper Poppy had given him. Edward Hadley, age seven. According to the obit, little Eddie was here “as a result of injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident.” Sorry about that, kid. Let’s just hope they didn’t run over your feet.

He saw the Hadley sign so he stepped inside for a quick look-see. A bad scene. Lots of weepy parents and confused-looking grade-school kids. He did a fly-by on the coffin. Little Eddie—at least the front of his top half that was visible—looked pretty good.

He moved to one of the windows and checked it out. Just wired at the sill. Christ, all he needed was a glass cutter and a suction cut and he’d be in. He glanced through at the parking lot. Nah. Too many lights and too many buildings around. He’d be exposed for too long. And besides, he wanted to get in and out with no one being the wiser.

He slipped back out the door into the hallway where he saw this suit with a big red Irish face directing mourner traffic. That gave Paulie an idea. He stepped up to the guy and saw the name tag on his lapel: MICHAEL L. MACDOUGAL. One of the owners. He should be able to answer Paulie’s question.

“Wonderful job you’re doing,” Paulie said.

“Thank you. We try. We try. But it’s so difficult when they’re so young.”

“I can imagine. Say, where’s—?”

“So many dying so young these days.” Michael L. MacDougal was shaking his head. “We just received a new beloved only hours ago. Barely out of her teens. They’re all so young. What’s happening?”

“I wish I knew.” And I wish you’d let me get a word in. “Where’s the men’s room, by the way?”

MacDougal pointed past the Hadley sign. “Make your first left and it’s right at the bottom of the steps.”

“Downstairs?” Paulie said, moving off. Outstanding!

On his way, Paulie passed a horse-faced woman in a tweed suit and a frilly blouse. Her name tag said EILEEN LYNCH. The other owner. Husband and wife? he wondered. Or maybe a brother-and-sister act. Like, who’d want to be married to that?

He hurried down the stairs and found a small paneled room with a couple of worn couches. Half a dozen people were sitting around, puffing on cigarettes. A fan in the ceiling sucked off the smoke.

A smoking lounge. How thoughtful.

Ahead were two rest room doors and a third marked private. He stepped inside the men’s room and found he had it all to himself. Over the toilet in the stall was a small casement window with no sign that it was connected to the security system. Beyond it, the rear parking lot stretched away at eye level.

How very thoughtful.

He undid the latch and yanked on the handle. It gave a little, then stuck. Hadn’t been opened in years, but he couldn’t see anything blocking it. All it needed was a little muscle from the other side and it would swing all the way up.

He stuck a piece of toilet tissue in the latch, left it in the open position, and stepped over to the sink to wash his hands. He smiled at himself in the mirror.

Piece of cake.

And then he frowned, remembering Poppy alone at the house with that kid. He hoped to hell Mac didn’t decide to pop in for a personal visit to check out the persuader. That could be big trouble.

Poppy adjusted her Minnie Mouse mask and then untied Katie’s hands and removed her blindfold.

“You have to go to the bathroom, Katie?” She shook her head and said nothing. She looked so down, poor kid. Poppy sat beside her on the bed and massaged her wrists.

“There. How’s that? That feel better?” Katie looked at her with those big blue eyes and nodded glumly, then looked back at Poppy’s hands.

“How come your fingernails are all black?”

” ‘Cause I paint them that way.”

“Oh. When am I going to see my daddy?”

“Soon. Real soon.” Again she wondered why she didn’t ask for her mommy.

Of course. Poppy had always been real close to her dad too. Mom had the regular job, working a register at Kmart, so she wasn’t around most days. Dad did seasonal work and sometimes he’d be home for weeks at a time. Since he loved basketball and she was his only kid, he’d taught her the game early. They’d spent countless afternoons going one-on-one.

Dad… I didn’t even know you were sick.

She looked at Katie and saw that her fine, dark hair was all tangled. A case of terminal bed head. But what’d you expect when the kid was tied to her bed all the time?

“How about I fix your braids?” Poppy said.

Katie brightened. “Could you do a French braid? My Nana never lets me have a French braid.”

“Nothing to it. One French braid, coming right up.” Katie’s smile, missing tooth and all, sent a shiver of pleasure through Poppy. If that’s all it takes to make you happy, little girl, you’ll get a million French braids.

And then the smile faded.

“You’re not going to make my hair like yours, are you?” Poppy felt her hair where it fell from behind the mask.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“The color’s weird.”

“Weird?” Poppy had to laugh. “That’s Deadly Nightshade, honey-bunch. The coolest color around. You rinse it into dark hair like mine and it comes out looking like red wine.”

“I still don’t want it on my hair.”

“Don’t worry. We won’t change your color, just your braids. Now, turn around and let me brush it out.” As she worked with Katie’s hair, Poppy couldn’t help thinking about Glory, and wondering if this is what might have been…

“What’s your name again?” Katie said.

Before she could give it a thought, her real name slipped out.

“Poppy.” Damn me! What an Appleton thing to do! Jesus, what am I gonna do now? The kid knows my name.

“That’s a pretty name,” Katie said. “Isn’t a poppy a flower?”

Oh, well. The damage was done. But maybe it wasn’t so bad. Anybody asking her would like figure Katie’s kidnappers would use fake names, so they’d pay no mind to “Poppy.” She hoped.

“Yep. It’s a little flower. That’s what my daddy used to call me. His little flower. Until I got tall. Then he called me his sunflower.”

“Where’s your daddy now?” Poppy’s eyes misted for an instant.

“He’s far away.”

“Is that where you grew up? Far away?”

“No. I grew up right around here.” Now that was like a total lie but it ought to throw off anybody coming around later looking for a Poppy who grew up in northern Virginia. No worry about her real home popping out. Poppy never told anyone her real home town.

Really, how could you tell someone you grew up on Sooy’s Boot, New Jersey? Sooy’s Boot! How could you let those words past your lips?

“I grew up far away,” Katie said. “In Georgia.”

“I figured you were from somewhere down South.”

“How come?”

“Yo’ axent, hunny,” she said, mimicking Katie’s drawl. “Lank Joe-jah.”

“I don’t have an accent.”

“Oh, yes, you—” Poppy stopped as her hand found a depression in Katie’s scalp on the left side of her head— in her skull. “Hey, what’s this dent in your head?”

“I… I had an accident.”

“What sort of accident?”

“I broke my head.” Poppy’s stomach turned.

“Shit! I mean, shoot! When did that happen?”

“When I was little.”

“When you were—?” Poppy had to laugh. “You’re not so big now. At least you weren’t born that way. If you were I might think you were an Appleton.”

“What’s a Appleton?”

“They’re some weird folks from back around where I grew up. Lots of them got weird-shaped heads.”

“I thought you said you grew up around here.”

“Yeah,” Poppy said quickly. “Yeah, well, somewhere not far from here.” Not far in miles, she thought. Probably less than two hundred. But so very far in every other way it might as well be like Mars or someplace.

Sooy’s Boot… a hiccup on one of the roads running through the heart of the New Jersey Pine Barrens. She was born and raised there, which made her like a fullfledged Piney. Which meant “poor hick” to most people.

But she didn’t remember feeling poor when she was growing up. Mom had the Kmart job in May’s Landing, and Dad worked the pineland’s annual cycle: He cut sphagnum moss in the spring, picked blueberries and huckleberries in the summer, then cranberries toward fall, and cut cordwood through the winter. They had everything they needed.

Until Mom died. She’d been bothered by the veins in her legs forever, and one day one of her legs got red and sore. She should have seen a doctor, but she put it off and put it off, and then one day at work she grabbed her chest and keeled over. She died on the way to the hospital. Coroner said a giant clot had come loose from one of the veins in her leg and clogged her heart. Or something like that.

That left Poppy and Dad. She was all he had, and he doted on her. And no doubt Poppy would like still be living in the pines, would have grown up to be another Piney girl married to a Piney guy, raising a bunch of little Pineys… if it hadn’t been for basketball.

Still brushing Katie’s hair, Poppy smiled. Jesus, she’d been good. Dad had drilled all the fundamentals into her before she was ten, and by middle school she was playing with the boys at recess and giving them a run for their money.

The coach at the regional high school took one look at her in tryouts and put her in the starting five of his varsity squad. She had to put up with some heavy resentment until they started winning like they’d never won before.

All because of me, she thought.

No brag. Truth. She’d been totally awesome in the paint—could dribble circles around anyone who got in her way. And when they walled up to block her out, she hung back and dropped in three pointers. And when they got so frustrated that they started fouling her, she’d sink two for two on her free throws—ninety-five percent from the line.

By junior year she’d already been offered a full ride at Rutgers. Dad had been ecstatic: Not only was his little flower All State, but she was going to college. That big round ball was going to be her ticket out of poverty and the pines.

Then she did a real Appleton thing: She fell in love.

With Charlie Pilgrim, of all people. Even now she couldn’t help wincing at the whole thing. How could she have been so totally stupid?

Well, one thing leading to another, as it so often does, Poppy had found herself pregnant. And since there was no way she’d have an abortion—after all, this was Charlie’s baby and they were in love—she had to quit basketball.

Dad was crushed, of course. And seeing his face every day when she came home right after school instead of practicing with the team became a total torture that finally got to be too much to take.

So she and Charlie had run off to New York City where Charlie was going to find a job and they were going to get married. Except Charlie never did find steady work and they never got around to like getting married. They wound up on welfare, sharing a filthy Lower East Side apartment with two other couples.

And then the baby had been born. She was beautiful, she was glorious, and so that was what they named her: Glory.

But soon Glory had started having fits, and the doctors at NYU Medical Center said she had a brain defect, something wrong in her head that gave her epilepsy. They tried all sorts of medications but she kept on having fit after fit after fit—the doctors called them seizures— until her eighty-ninth day of life when she went into a final unstoppable fit that lasted until she died.

All the doctors had been sorry; some of the nurses even cried. They all said they didn’t know why she had all those fits, but Poppy knew. It was Appleton blood. Some of it was in her. Dad had always said there wasn’t, but what had happened to Glory was proof. Poppy had bad blood. Appleton blood.

She hadn’t been too easy to be with after that. She totally hated the doctors, hated everyone around her, hated Charlie for getting her pregnant, but like hated herself most of all. Charlie couldn’t take it anymore. He wanted to take her back to Sooy’s Boot but no way could she face Dad again. Not after losing the baby because of Appleton blood.

So Charlie had left without her. Probably told all sorts of tales about her when he got back. Poppy hadn’t cared. She totally wanted to die. And she damn well might have killed herself if she hadn’t discovered the unholy trinity: grass, speed, and coke. They hadn’t killed the pain, but they’d eased it, made it like bearable.

Some long, dark years had followed, years that were mostly a blur now.

She tried not to think about the things she did to get by. She fell in with some bad people, even turned tricks when she was desperate, OD’d a couple times, got beat up more than a couple times, and just might be dead by now if she hadn’t found Paulie.

Paulie had changed her life, and she liked to think she like changed Paulie’s—for the better, of course.

Her only regret was that she hadn’t gone back home, just for a visit. She’d been so wrapped up in herself, she never imagined something could have been wrong with Dad… that he wouldn’t always be there. And then… he wasn’t there… would never be there again… and she never knew until he was six months in the ground.

Maybe that’s what I’ll do when this is over, she thought as she finished weaving Katie’s French braid. Tending to Katie had awakened a longing in her. She’d thought she never wanted to see Sooy’s Boot again, but now…

She felt like going home. She still had family in the pines. Maybe she could like reconnect… if any of them would speak to her.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Katie said.

“Sure thing, honey bunch. And you can check out your braid in the mirror while you’re at it.

She had her halfway there when the phone rang.

Poppy hurried her into the bathroom. “Now, you stay in there till I come and get you,” she told her, then dashed for the phone.

She picked up on the fourth ring and slipped her Minnie Mouse mask to the top of her head.

“Hello?”

“What took you so long?” She knew that voice: Mac.

“I was taking the’package’”—Jesus, she hated that word—”to the bathroom.”

“Put him on,” Mac said.

Him. That meant Paulie. Poppy knew how paranoid Mac was about mentioning names or being specific about anything on the phone. Talking to him was all about not saying things. Maybe she could see his point, but how about a Hello or How’s it going? Jesus, she hated this guy. The sooner they were rid of him, the better. She couldn’t wait.

“He’s not here.”

“Where the hell is he?”

“Out.” He wants info, she thought, let him scratch for it.

“Don’t give me this shit, girl. Where is he?”

“Shopping. Getting some tools.”

“Tools? What are you giving me? Did he get the persuader? Is it packed up and ready to go?”

“Not yet.” Silence on the other end, then a tone so totally low and cold she almost dropped the phone. “You’d better explain.” She was ready for that. She’d been rehearsing.

“It’s gonna get done. It’s just that this one’s a lot trickier than the last. We got a smaller area to work with, if you know what I’m saying.”

“Then go back to the original—like last time.”

Right, Mac, she thought. Her finger. Sure. On a cold day in hell.

She said, “Either way, it’s a different situation. We can’t exactly get this package liquored up like the last one.” What an absolute total nightmare that had been.

“So use something else. Or maybe I ought to come over and supervise.”

Oh, Jesus, no. No-no-no-no!

“That’s okay, Mac. We’re handling it. It’ll get done as soon as he gets back.”

“Yeah? What tool’s he out buying?”

“A meat cleaver.”

Another silence on Mac’s end, shorter this time. His voice was lighter when he spoke again. “Yeah. That oughta do it.”

“Quick and neat,” she said, forcing the words. She couldn’t resist adding, “But no matter how you look at it, it’s like pretty goddamn ugly. I mean, she’s only—”

“Watch it! Watch what you say.”

“All right, but—”

“No buts. And don’t get all soft and fuzzy on me. A little persuader will make things run much smoother, and get this over quicker. And besides, she’ll never miss it.” And she’ll never forget what two strangers did to her in a back room when she was six years old. Poppy thought. But I’ll see to it she doesn’t have to forget.

Poppy sighed with all the regret she could muster. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Suppose? You’d better know I’m right. Have him call my voice mail if there’s a problem; otherwise he knows where to deliver it.” Mac hung up right in the middle of her “Yeah.” Jesus, she hated him.

She got her Minnie Mouse mask back on and went to retrieve Katie from the bathroom. She needed a dose of that little girl to clear away the bad aftertaste of Mac.

12

Paulie stood in a clump of trees across from the Lynch-MacDougal Funeral Home and watched all the mourners trail away. He waited while all windows went dark one by one, then groaned as he saw Michael and Lydia appear at the back door.

“The parking lot lights, schmuck! Don’t leave’em on. It’s a waste of energy.”

The pair didn’t seem to care. They locked up and headed for separate cars; MacDougal to a Buick Riviera and Lynch to a little Beamer then drove off in the same direction. He still hadn’t figured out how those two were related, and didn’t really care. He had a problem: the sodium lamps didn’t leave a single goddamn shadow near the building. This was going to be like breaking in at noon.

But it had to be done. At least the bathroom window was around back. That gave him some cover.

He checked his pockets: penlight, pruning shears, the leather driving gloves from his chauffeur stint the other day all present and accounted for. He checked the street. When no cars were in sight, he dashed across and pelted straight through the parking lot to the back of the funeral home. He stood there panting, looking innocent, while he waited to see if he’d attracted any attention.

Nothing stirred. He crouched, spotted the white of the toilet tissue he’d left to mark the right window, and gave it a shove. The window swung in easily.

Paulie rolled onto his belly, pushed his legs into the opening, and slid through the window. A tight squeeze for his shoulders, but he managed to wriggle through and wound up standing on the toilet. He pushed the window closed and turned on the penlight.

Moving out to the dark smoking lounge, he looked around for the private door. He’d been thinking about what might be on the other side and had an idea. He stepped inside and flashed the light around. Just what he’d suspected: polished wooden boxes in tight neat rows. This was where they stored the coffins.

Holding the penlight in his mouth, he moved along the rows, going from coffin to coffin, finding the latches on each, unhooking them, and lifting the lids. Nothing to it.

They were all pretty much the same. Good. He’d been worried that he’d have trouble with the Eddie Hadley coffin upstairs. He always made a point of keeping flashlight use to an absolute minimum if windows were involved. None down here, but he’d seen plenty of glass upstairs.

As he turned to leave, the light caught a silvery reflection in a rear corner of the room. Looked like stainless steel sinks and counters. Must be where Lynch and MacDougal did their embalming. He spotted a white sheeted figure on a table. The next customer?

Paulie knew he should be heading upstairs for his date with Eddie Hadley’s toe, but he found himself irresistibly drawn to that table. Just for a look. Only take a second…

As he neared, he figured which end was the head. He lifted the sheet and flashed the beam on the face of a young girl with long brown hair. Pale as the sheet, but with her eyes closed she looked like she was sleeping, like one shake of her shoulder and she’d open up and look at him. This must have been the young “beloved” MacDougal had mentioned.

Paulie lifted the sheet farther—nude as a lap dancer underneath and very nicely built. He stared at her, wondering what she’d died of. Too bad. She was a looker.

He dropped the sheet and headed upstairs. He found the Hadley room and stepped inside. A quick flash of the light showed him the path through the chairs. He reached the coffin and found someone had closed it.

Fine with me, he thought. He didn’t feature having the kid watching while he crunched on his toe.

He felt along under the cover lip until he found the latch for the lower half, unhooked it, and lifted. Another quick flash to orient himself and— “I’ll be damned!” The kid wasn’t wearing pants or shoes or socks.

This made it easier for Paulie, sure, but it was something of a shock. You figure if they dress the top half, they dress the rest of you too.

“All right, Eddie boy,” he said, “time for your contribution to the cause.” No way around using his light now, but at least he’d have the coffin cover between him and the window. He pulled the pruning shears from his pocket, stuck the light in his mouth and bent over the kid’s feet. He found the little toe on the right foot, fitted the shears around it, and squeezed. Nowhere near the resistance he’d expected. A little pressure, a soft crunch, and there it was: one persuader, made to order.

He pocketed the shears and picked up the toe. Tiny little thing—half the size of a cigarette filter, and about as white but heavier. As he took a closer look he saw that the cut end was wet and reddish, but it wasn’t bloody. That might be a problem, but he’d worry about it later. Now that he had what he’d come for, he wanted out of here.

He glanced at his watch. Not bad: door to door—make that window to window—in ten minutes.

He pulled out the Ziploc sandwich bag he’d brought along. As he went to drop the toe inside, he felt it slip from his fingers.

“Fuck!” He checked the bag. No, it hadn’t fallen in there. That meant it was on the floor. Christ, he had to find it.

Paulie dropped to his knees and began flashing the light along the floor. Great… the carpet was beige… and thick—just his luck.

Easiest thing to do would be to just cut off the other toe and forget about this one. But sure as hell someone would find it tomorrow and want to know where it came from. And when they found out he’d bet his ass the papers and the TV news would start shouting about someone chopping off little kids’ toes, and then for sure Mac would come gunning for him.

Nope. Had to find this one.

At least he was below window level where the penlight wouldn’t be seen from the street. But where was the goddamn thing?

He didn’t know how long he was down there on the floor, kneeling, crouching, crawling, lying flat on his belly, shining the light at all different angles—seemed like forever—until he spotted this slightly paler lump nestled in the carpet fibers four feet from the coffin. Was that—?

Yes. He almost sobbed with relief. How the hell did it get over there? Damn thing must have bounced and rolled. Who cared? He had it and he wasn’t losing it. Still lying on the floor, he carefully sealed the toe in the baggie and stuffed that deep into the front pocket of his jeans.

Then he rose and closed and latched the lower half of Eddie’s coffin.

“Thanks, buddy. You’ve been a real—” The words choked in his throat.

Outside the window sitting in the parking lot…

A car.

Christ! Where’d that come from? Must have pulled in while he was on the floor. But who—?

Out in the hall, he heard the faint clack of a dead bolt snapping open. He made like a statue and listened. The rear door swung open with a creak. He heard the alarm panel begin to beep, then shut off as someone punched in the security code. He heard someone humming—a guy.

MacDougal? Yeah. The car outside was a Riv, just like he’d seen MacDougal driving. As a light came on down the hall, Paulie crouched behind the coffin, but instead of coming this way, MacDougal headed downstairs.

At first Paulie cursed—that was his way out. He was stuck here until MacDougal left, and who knew how long that would be?

All right, he thought. I know the who. What’s the why?

Only one reason he could figure for MacDougal to come back at this hour and head downstairs: He had to be embalming the babe on the table.

Shit, that could take hours, and Paulie didn’t exactly have all night.

Mac wanted a call when the persuader was delivered. He didn’t get that call soon, he’d start getting antsy… might decide to pay the package a personal visit.

Then Paulie realized something: The alarm was off. He could sneak out the rear door—walk instead of crawl. He allowed himself a smile. When someone hands you a lemon, make lemonade.

He stepped out into the hall and headed toward the rear, moving carefully, hugging the wall where the flooring was less likely to creak.

But as he passed the security panel he stopped and suppressed a groan. The indicator light was red—MacDougal had rearmed the system.

Okay. Only one thing to do. If MacDougal was in that back room doing whatever it was undertakers did to “beloveds,” he’d probably never hear Paulie sneak downstairs and slip out the bathroom window. A risky move but doable—if you had the balls.

He had to get out of here.

He headed downstairs, taking every step as carefully as he could. The carpeting helped. When he reached bottom he peeked into the lounge and found it empty.

Excellent.

The door to the private room was half open and he heard MacDougal’s voice coming from inside, talking now instead of humming.

Even better. Paulie’s worst-case scenario on his way down the stairs had been sneaking into the bathroom and finding MacDougal taking a dump.

He skittered over to the bathroom door and was easing it open when he heard MacDougal’s voice change. He was groaning now, making weird noises. Paulie knew he should stay on course but he had to see what was going on.

He crept to the private door, put his nose against its outer surface, then eased his head to the side until he could peek around the edge.

At the far end of the room, MacDougal’s fat naked body was bobbing atop the dead girl on the embalming table. Fascinated and repulsed, Paulie watched for a few seconds, then tore himself away. The growling animal noises coming from MacDougal now were the perfect cover for his escape.

Shaking his head, Paulie headed back to the bathroom. Weirdos—the world was full of them, man.

13

Poppy heard the garage door go up. She peeked out and saw the panel truck pulling in.

Finally! Jesus he’d been gone so long she thought something had happened to him. The extra time could only mean one thing: trouble. At least now she knew he hadn’t got caught. But what if he hadn’t been able to get that toe? He had to have it. She couldn’t think of any other way out of this mess.

She could like barely breathe as she waited for him to come through the door. And when he did she totally jumped on him.

“Did you get it? Please say yes. Please!”

He gave her this innocent look. “Get what? Was I supposed to get something?”

“Paulie! Don’t do this to me!”

Finally he smiled. “Of course I got it.”

She sagged against him. “Oh, thank God! I was so worried.”

“Nothing to it. Want to see?”

“No, thanks. I’ll pass.”

“Maybe you better take a look.” She backed up a step and looked at him.

“Why? Don’t tell me the dead kid was black or something.”

“Nah. White as the package. But there’s something missing, something we’ll need if we’re gonna pull this off.”

“What’s that?”

“Blood. The persuader ain’t gonna be too persuasive if we send it like it is. We need to smear some fresh blood around the edge.” Poppy swallowed. He was right. She hadn’t thought about that.

“Okay. We can use some of mine. I’ll…” He was shaking his head slowly.

“What if dear old dad gets the blood typed, just to be sure, it’s his kid’s? We can’t risk that. We need hers.”

“Uh-uh,” she said, backing up another step. “No way.”

“Poppy,” he said slowly. “I went to hell and back to save your little friend’s toe. All we need to make this work—to really get away with it—is a few drops of her blood. A pin prick, f’chrissake. Otherwise, you want to be responsible for what happens when Mac shows up with the news that the package’s father says it ain’t his kid’s toe?”

He had a point—a very scary point. She hated it, but it was the only way. A little stick was like a small price to pay to save a whole toe.

She sighed. “All right. But let me talk to her first.” She was pretty sure she could make Katie understand. They’d got pretty tight tonight. What did the guys call it? Bonding? Yeah. That was it. Katie and me bonded pretty good tonight.

Friday

1

“Marijuana’s full name is cannabis hemp and it is one very useful plant. It produces the toughest known natural fiber. The first denim and most of the world’s sailcloth used to be made from cannabis hemp. As a matter of fact, the Dutch word for cannabis is canvass.

“Did you know it takes four acres of twenty-year-old trees to make the same amount of paper as a single acre of hemp? And without using bleaches and dioxin? You can make methanol, cooking oil, vegetable protein, medications… the list goes on and on. Cannabis is a cash crop that won’t need a single subsidy. It’s silly to keep it illegal.” John turned down the volume on the TV, muffling Heather Brent’s latest interview.

Was that a beep he’d just heard? It seemed to have come from down the hall, in the direction of the study and the computer. A real beep, or just wishful thinking? Probably his imagination.

He sat up on the edge of the bed and rubbed his face.

Another sleepless night. Another series of fruitless trips to the computer in search of Snake-mail. He’d been praying all night to hear from the kidnappers. Now he was hearing things. But he had to check. He’d left the computer logged in to the HHS network. If e-mail arrived, it would beep.

The bastard, John thought as he stumbled down the hall for one more look. He’s really punishing me for that hang up. Probably thinks I’ll be so tortured by a whole day of not hearing anything that I’ll be as compliant as a used examination glove and do everything he tells me.

Well, he’s not far from wrong.

John had decided to agree—verbally—without question or reservation to everything Snake demanded. But all the while he’d be looking for a way around actually poisoning Tom. He didn’t know how yet, but something would come up, he was sure.

He stepped into the study and blinked at the screen. Was that—? He stepped closer. Yes. The mail icon was blinking in the corner. He downloaded the letter to his screen.

From the anonymous remailer—thank you. God—but only eight words:

Check your snail mail, then e-mail your response.

Snail mail? But the mailman didn’t come by until— The mailbox.

John pulled on the first pair of pants he could find and ran out to the curb. He opened the mailbox door and found one of those padded mailers stuffed inside. He reached for it, then hesitated as thoughts of bombs and booby traps raced through his brain. He dismissed them, but found himself more than a little unsettled by the realization that Snake or one of his people—the guy in the sweatsuit in the CVS, maybe—had stood on this very spot not long ago. If he’d been looking out the window, he might have seen them. Gingerly, he reached in and removed the envelope.

Light. Couldn’t be much more than paper inside. Check your snail mail; then e-mail your response. That could only mean printed instructions. Or maybe some new demand.

Taking a deep breath, he grabbed the pull here tab and yanked. He reached inside but found no paper. Only a small plastic bag. He pulled it out and stared at it. At first he thought it was empty, then he spotted something stuck in the corner. Little. No bigger than one of his fingernails.

White… and red… and the red was smeared along the inner surface of the bag.

His heart began to pound… the bag trembled in his fingers as he leaned closer for a better look. And when he realized what it was his legs seemed to dissolve and he dropped to his knees and let out an agonized howl of grief and despair so long and loud that it set the neighborhood dogs to barking.

2

Snake hurried up the front walk to the house.

He would have preferred to limit all his contact with Paulie to phones and hotel bars, but he always made a point of visiting at least once to inspect the arrangements.

What he didn’t like was someone remembering him or his car here in the unlikely event the place was ever connected to the snatch. Which was why he was wearing an Orioles cap and had his collar pulled up. The Virginia plates on the Jeep were borrowed and would be tossed in the Potomac as soon as this was over.

All those precautions, and still he felt buck naked out here. But that didn’t blunt his good mood. He’d heard from Vanduyne this morning and everything was under control.

As he approached the front door he made a quick check of the yard. The butter-colored blossoms on the scraggly forsythia along the foundation did little to offset the house’s generally disheveled appearance. Not much of a lawn, but it looked like it was waking up from winter. Yard maintenance had been part of the one-year lease, but they’d all be long gone before it needed its first mowing.

He knocked on the door. “It’s me. Everybody where they should be?” He’d phoned earlier to let them know he was coming. He wanted the package safely tucked out of sight when he arrived.

Paulie opened the door. “Yeah. Everything’s fine. C’mon in.” As the door closed behind him. Snake reached out and grabbed Paulie’s hand. “Good job with the persuader, my man. Worked like a charm.” Always a good policy to lavish a little praise on the peons when it was well deserved. A few strokes cost nothing and sometimes were better than money. Sometimes.

He spotted Poppy on the couch, reading a magazine. She didn’t look up and he didn’t bother acknowledging her. The bitch was one major pain in the ass.

“Yeah?” Paulie said, smiling through his beard. “How do you know?”

“Got a message from him this morning. Guy’s practically falling all over himself to cooperate.”

“So he bought it, huh?”

Snake spotted a quick look pass between him and Poppy. What was going on here?

“Bought it?” Snake said. “What’s to buy? It’s his kid’s toe.”

“Yeah, I know. But he could’ve thought she was already dead and we just cut her toe off, or something like that. But then, with fresh blood on the toe, I guess he’d have to believe she was still alive.” Snake had never heard Paulie babble like this… and he didn’t like it.

“Something wrong, Paulie?”

“Wrong?” His eyes got a funny, guarded look. “No. Why should anything be wrong.”

“Because you’re not acting like yourself.”

“Maybe because he never had to molest a child before,” Poppy said.

Snake didn’t bother looking at her. “Nobody molested anyone. And who asked you anyway?”

“What do you call chopping off a six-year-old’s toe?” she said. “Not exactly a walk in the park. And we’re damn lucky she didn’t take one of her fits.”

Now he had no choice but to face Poppy, and he was shocked by the naked anger and revulsion in her expression—as if she were looking at something that had just crawled out from under a rock. He fought an urge to step over there and wipe that look off her face.

“Fits?”

“Yeah. The fits she takes those pills for.” Now he got it. “Oh. You mean convulsions.” He let the words drip acid. “You need to work on your vocabulary, honey.”

“And you need to work on your research. How come you didn’t know she took fits?”

Snake had had just about enough of this bitch. He turned to Paulie.

“Tell your girlfriend not to speak unless spoken to.”

“She’s got a right to her opinion.”

“When I want the opinion of someone with purple hair, I’ll ask for it.”

Paulie held up his hands. “All right, all right. The point she’s trying to make is it was pretty goddamn dicey getting that toe. I hope to hell it was worth it.” Snake gave himself a few seconds to cool.

“Yeah. It was worth it. You should have seen her father’s message. Frantic as hell. If it had been on paper it would have been covered with tear stains.” Snake smiled. As he’d read those pleading words he could almost hear Vanduyne’s sobs. Please oh please oh please oh PLEASE don’t hurt her again!

“I guess you’re real proud of yourself,” Poppy said.

She was asking for it… really asking for it…

“C’mon, Poppy,” Paulie said, giving her a hard look.

“Yeah,” Snake continued, ignoring her. “No more arguments from Daddy. He’s ready to do anything we want.”

“And just what is it we want Daddy to do?” Paulie said.

“That’s between me and the other people involved. Better you don’t know.” No way in hell was he telling these two.

“So, where’s the little package?” he said to Paulie.

He jerked his head toward one of the doors leading off the living room.

“In there.”

“Well, I’ll just take a look, and that will complete my inspection tour.”

“She’s sleeping,” Poppy said.

Didn’t this bitch know when to shut up?

“Blindfolded?” he said to Paulie.

“Sure. That’s SOP.”

“Good.” He started toward the door. “Then I’ll just take a peek.” Poppy was up and standing by the door, her worried eyes nicking from Paulie, to the door, to Snake, and around again.

“Don’t. You’ll wake her up. You don’t know what a time we had getting her to sleep.”

“That’s what baby-sitters get paid for.” He breezed past her and opened the door. The light was out so he found the switch and flicked it.

Poppy slipped past him and stood by the foot of the bed—no, hovered was more like it. She looked nervous as a cat, biting her lip, rubbing her hands together. Looking at her you’d have bet half your net worth the package was her own kid.

But Snake had to admit that everything looked okay: The package was blindfolded and tied to the bed frame, just as she should be. She wore a plaid shirt and overalls of some sort, a sneaker on her left foot, and a big gauze bandage on her right.

He nodded and walked out, leaving Poppy behind. Out in the front room, Paulie still didn’t look right. And that worried Snake. He didn’t want these two to get cold feet on him. The game still had a way to go before it was finished.

“Hey,” he said with a smile, “she looks pretty damn good. No worse for wear, as far as I can see. And she’ll never miss that toe.”

“I’m real glad it worked,” Paulie said.” ‘Cause I don’t know if I could go through that again.”

“What’s the matter with you, Paulie? You going soft?”

“No. I just—”

Snake felt his rage flare. Time to lay down the law to these assholes.

“You just nothing! You’re working for me. I tell you to cut off her fucking hand, you say, ‘Which one?’ Or you’re out of this!” But Paulie was shaking his head. He was looking at the floor, but he was hanging tough.

“All right,” he said. “Then we’re out of it. Find someone else to do your dirty work. But we ain’t cutting up a kid. It ain’t right.”

The words shook Snake. Find someone else? Where the hell would he find another baby-sitter at this stage of the game? This whole gig was going to hell. First he had to take out an insurance policy with Salinas, and then he had to deal with that unpredictable Vanduyne, and now the peasants were threatening revolt. What next?

“You threatening me?”

Paulie shook his head. “No threat. Just telling you the way it is. We’ll play this thing through just like you want it, but no more persuaders.” Snake couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t make him look bad. And since he couldn’t do what he really felt like doing—put a .38-caliber hole in Paulie’s face—he decided to make his exit.

Yeah. Leave them wondering what his next move would be.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said, and headed out the front door.

He fumed on the way across the yard. And to think he’d been feeling guilty about throwing Paulie and Poppy to Salinas’s wolves when this was over. Just went to show how useless an emotion guilt was. Getting rid of these two was a great idea. He’d had it up to here with Paulie and his bitch.

3

As soon as the door closed behind Mac, Poppy threw her arms around Paulie.

“Paulie! You were awesome! The way you stood up to him… totally awesome!” She could feel him shaking but wouldn’t mention it— not for a million dollars.

“Yeah, well, I just didn’t like him talking to you like that. Know what I mean? I mean, enough is enough.” She looked up at his face and realized something was different about him.

He’d started getting quiet last night after taking the blood from Katie.

Poppy had held her while Paulie jabbed the corner of a razor blade into the pad of her little toe. They figured they were going to have to bandage her foot anyway to make it look like she’d had her toe cut off, so why not like get the blood from that spot.

And Katie had been so good about it, a real champ. She’d winced and whimpered, but that was about it. She said she was used to getting stuck because of the regular blood tests she had to get as long as she was taking her medicine.

And after Paulie came back from delivering the persuader, he’d been quieter still, and had continued that way this morning. She’d thought he was still ticked at her for making him go out to that funeral home last night, but now she realized it was something else. Something deeper.

“What’s up, Paulie? What’s bothering you?”

He pulled away and went to the window. He stood there with his hands jammed into his pockets and stared out at the front yard “I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t sleep much last night. I got to thinking—I don’t do much of that, but last night I couldn’t turn it off. I kept thinking about how you stood up to me yesterday. I mean, Mac says, ‘Cut off her finger,’ I haggle him down to a toe, and I’m ready to do it. But you say no—this was something you weren’t going to do, weren’t going to allow to happen. You were ready to put everything on the line to stop it. I was pissed, as you know, but later on it hit me like a ton of fucking bricks: You drew a line and said, ‘That’s it. That’s where I stop. I don’t cross that line and neither does anybody else when I’m around.’ And so I laid there last night thinking, Where’s my line? I mean, do I even have a line? Or do I just wait for someone like Mac to tell me what to do, then go ahead like some fucking robot and do it? What kind of man is that? I couldn’t turn it off.”

Poppy stepped over to the window and slipped her arms around him, pressing her face against his upper back. She felt as if she were about to totally burst. She didn’t dare speak because she knew she’d start bawling.

So amazing… the feelings Paulie was talking about, they were the same ones that had been growing in her since the last baby-sitting job. But hers had been creeping up on her—at least until she’d seen Katie having a fit; then it all like came together. Paulie had got hit all at once.

“I’m gonna be thirty in November,” he said. “And man, I laid there and looked back over my life and you know what I saw? Nothing. Not a goddamn thing. I mean, if I died now, is there any trace of me anywhere? Is there anything to say Paulie Dicastro was even here? No. There ain’t. So last night I decided I was gonna start drawing lines. Gonna learn to say ‘Stop, I don’t go past this point.’ I mean, you gotta stand for something in your life, and I never really stood up for anything, but that’s gonna change. I’m not saying this good. Am I making any sense at all?”

Poppy hugged him tighter. “Truckloads. Maybe this is a turning point for us, Paulie. Maybe we can make something good out of his whole ugly scene. We take the money we get and like go off somewhere and use it to build something.”

“Yeah, but what? I don’t know anything legal. What am I good for except taking orders?”

“Don’t worry. We’ll find something. We’re not total jerks. But the important thing is we’ll draw another kind of line—between the old life and the new life. And we’ll like never look back, Paulie.”

“Yeah,” he said, turning around and looking at her. His eyes searched her face. “You and me. We can do that.”

Poppy pressed her face against Paulie’s shoulder. She’d never felt this close to him.

4

“You will be able to come up with so much money?” Nana said. John looked up at his mother from where he sat before the computer and worried. She didn’t know the half of it—a tenth of it—and already she looked like she was falling apart. Her hair was carelessly combed, her clothes wrinkled, her once rosy cheeks now pale and pinched. And she kept digging her fingertips into the sides of her throat as if she were having trouble breathing.

No way he could tell her the truth—about the “service” he was to perform, about… Katie’s toe. So he’d lied to her. He’d told her the kidnappers didn’t really want a service from him, they wanted money—a million dollars.

“Yeah,” John said softly. “It’s in the works. I have calls out to some people who owe me favors, and a bunch of loan officers at the bank are working on it. I should be able to get it all together in a couple of days.”

“A couple of days? But Katie will be a prisoner all that time. How can you—?”

He flared. Before he could stop it, his voice jumped to a shout.

“Don’t you think I want her back too? Today? This minute? It’s not like I can just sit down and write a check!”

He saw her flinch and that doused his anger. He reached out and grasped her hand. “Sorry, Mom. I’m just on edge. I’m doing the best that I can as fast as I can.”

She patted his hand. “I know you are, Johnny. I never should have said… it is just that I cannot bear the thought of Katie being held prisoner by these people a single minute longer than absolutely necessary.”

Prisoner, he thought, feeling sick again. If only that were the worst of it.

“I am going to lie down. Those pills you gave me make me so sleepy. I am too tired even for my yoga.” He’d started her on a tranquilizer last night. He wished he could pop a few himself, but he had to stay alert, had to stay on top of things.

“Do that. Mom. Lie down, close your eyes, try to sleep. It’ll make the time go faster.”

When she was gone, he got up and went downstairs to the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator door and looked inside. He knew he had to eat something, but his appetite was gone, maybe forever. He closed the door but didn’t move away. His eyes were drawn to the freezer compartment.

He could almost see it through the door, still in the plastic bag, sealed in a white envelope tucked away behind the ice cube trays: Katie’s little toe.

He had no delusions about reattaching it, and if he had, freezing would not be the way to preserve it. But what else could he do?

After dragging himself in from the mailbox and vomiting, he’d taken the Baggie and its contents down to the basement where he could cry without his mother hearing. He remembered shaking, sweating, and sobbing for only a few minutes, and then it was as if a circuit somewhere inside of him overloaded and tripped a breaker. He went numb. He’d sat there with the Baggie in his hand, not looking at it, staring off into space instead.

Finally he stood and began moving about, in circles at first, trying to focus. He couldn’t wallow. He had decisions to make. Katie’s life depended on those decisions.

But first, the toe… that horrid, precious, bloody little toe. He couldn’t let Nana see it, and he couldn’t bear the thought of letting it rot. He’d had to do something, and the freezer was all he could think of.

Thinking… God, that was such a problem. Trying to force his thoughts to get in line and make sense—it took such effort.

But after hiding the toe, he managed to sit down at the computer and tap out a reply to Snake. It wasn’t all that coherent, but John didn’t care.

All he wanted to do was let this monster know that he would do anything— anything—he was asked, just please don’t hurt Katie any more.

And he meant that. Snake had made his point: He held all the high cards. He was in charge. John had been tortured by the choice between his best friend and his daughter. But Katie’s toe had dissolved the conflict.

Katie.

He chose Katie.

Katie would live. And Tom would have to find some way to survive.

Snake’s blood-freezing reply had reinforced that resolve.

NOW we understand each other! You know what you have to do. Do it soon. VERY soon. Or we’ll start testing your jigsaw puzzle skills.

John dragged himself away from the refrigerator and went to the phone.

He blocked all questions, all speculation as he narrowed his focus to the task at hand. He pulled out the yellow pages and searched the physician listings. He found a Dr. Adelson, an internist way up in Friendship Heights, and copied down his address and phone number. As Dr. Adelson, he began dialing the downtown pharmacies until he found one that had a small stock of chloramphenicol.

In the most matter-of-fact tone he could muster, he called in a prescription for someone named Henry Johnson: “Give him Chlormycetin 250, twenty caps, one Q-I-D, No refill, and generic’s okay.” When the pharmacist asked for his address and office phone number, John supplied Adelson’s. Fine… Mr. Johnson could pick up his pills in about thirty minutes.

John leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. Step one completed.

Now for step two.

But as he picked up the phone, the doorbell rang. He jumped and almost dropped the phone.

Not a delivery man… oh, please. God, not another piece of Katie!

John hung up and forced himself toward the door that loomed ahead of him like the portals of hell. Clenching his teeth he grabbed the knob and yanked it open.

An attractive, fortyish woman stood on the front step. She wore a mink coat and high heels. Her long, glossy black hair was tied back with a gold clasp. Her face was perfectly made up. She was smiling, but her dark eyes challenged him.

John nearly staggered back at the sight of her. This was impossible.

“Hello, John.” Her voice… so smooth, so cool, so perfectly modulated.

“Mamie!” His own voice sounded like steel dragging across concrete. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to see my daughter.”

“You-you’re supposed to be in Georgia!”

“I was released.”

“I don’t believe that!”

“It’s true, John. I’m cured. I’m on medication, and as long as I maintain my dosage, I’m fine. As a matter of fact, if I keep doing this well, Dr. Schuyler says he might try tapering my dose in the fall. Isn’t that wonderful?”

John’s mind reeled. This couldn’t be. Mamie was supposed to be at the Marietta Psychiatric Center. What was she doing in D.C.? And why now? Of all times, why did she have to appear now?

“I don’t care what Schuyler or anyone else says, the court said you’re not supposed to leave Georgia.”

Her smile held. “Dr. Schuyler worked it out for me. I’m well enough to travel now. And I want to see Katie.”

“No,” John said, shaking his head as vehemently as he could. “Not a chance. Not a chance in hell.”

“I’m her mother, John.” The smile wavered. “I have a right to—”

“You have no rights!” he said, feeling his anger rise— and loving it. So good to feel something other than sickness and dread. “You gave them up, remember? That was the deal: No prison for you, sole custody for me. And that’s the way it’s going to be.”

Finally the smile vanished. “I want to see Katie. You can’t keep me from seeing my own daughter.”

“I can and will. And if you don’t get away from here, I’ll call the police and tell them you’re a fugitive from a Georgia psychiatric hospital.”

“That’s not—”

“And I’ll also tell them about the standing court order that forbids you from going anywhere near her. Do I call now, or do you leave?” Mamie backed up a step. And now her lips trembled.

“This isn’t fair, John.”

“That won’t work on me, Mamie. And I don’t want to hear about fair. Do us all a favor and go back to Georgia. Now.”

“I hope you’re taking better care of her than you are of yourself. You look terrible.”

“Good-bye, Mamie.” He shut the door and leaned his forehead against the inner surface. Please go away. I already have more than I can handle. I can’t deal with you too.

God he hated her, loathed the very sight of her. As an enlightened man of the nineties—and a physician to boot—he knew you couldn’t hold the mentally ill responsible for their acts. But that didn’t mean he had to forgive them.

And John would never forgive Mamie for what she had done. No matter what army of psychiatrists she assembled to proclaim her mentally and emotionally stable and perfectly fit to return to society, he would never allow Mamie back into Katie’s life.

He stood on tiptoe and peeked through the miniature fanlight in the upper panel of the door. The front yard was empty. Mamie was gone. And she’d better stay gone or she’d screw up everything. But he didn’t doubt for a moment that she’d be back.

“John?” His mother’s voice, coming from upstairs.

“Yeah, Mom?”

“Was someone at the door?”

“Just a salesman. Mom. Go get some rest. I’ll let you know as soon as anything happens.” Katie, Tom, Mom, Snake, Mamie—how long could he keep all the balls in the air without dropping one?

Feeling as if he were about to explode, John returned to the kitchen and settled down to the task of arranging to poison the President of the United States.

Steeling himself, he punched in the direct line to Betty Kenny. Betty had started out as a clerk-typist in Tom’s office when he was a lowly congressman. She’d moved with him to the Senate and was now his personal secretary, controlling his all-important appointment book. To get to Tom you had to get past Battleship Betty. But she knew John and liked him; and he knew how she worried about her boss’s health.

“Hi, Betty,” he said, trying to sound light and carefree with no idea if he was succeeding. “It’s John Vanduyne. I need a few moments with your boss tomorrow to check his blood pressure. Will he be around?” He crossed his fingers. Please say yes.

“Hi, John. Let me check. Weren’t you here for that just the other day?”

“Yeah. Wednesday. And I didn’t like what I found.” Her voice dropped.

“Really? Was it bad?”

“I probably shouldn’t have said that. Forget what you just heard, okay?”

“I won’t say a word. You know that. But I want to know: Should I be worried?”

He played on her concern. “His pressure was borderline high, but I want to keep an eye on it. Especially if he’s traveling to The Hague next week.”

“I understand. Let’s see… he’s got a meeting in the Oval Office at ten… this won’t take long, will it?”

“Ten minutes, fifteen at most.”

“Okay. Why don’t I keep that half hour between nine thirty and ten o’clock clear? How’s that?”

“Perfect.” The word was bitter in his mouth.

A little small talk and he was off the phone again, leaning back, trembling.

Stage two completed.

He’d been so cool on the phone, on autopilot, but now the weight of what he was planning crept back to him.

Especially if he’s traveling to The Hague next week…

But I’ll be doing my damnedest to make sure he doesn’t get to The Hague next week, John thought. If he shows up there, Katie dies.

I’m just going to make him sick, he told himself for the thousandth time since opening the mailbox this morning. He won’t die. He may almost die, but the cutting-edge medical care available to the President of the United States will pull him through.

But what if the chloramphenicol didn’t have any effect on Tom’s marrow? It was a possibility. What then? Or what if there was a delayed reaction that didn’t kick in for weeks? Would Snake believe he’d dosed Tom as instructed? Not for a minute.

John wanted to scream, but that would wake up his mother.

Time to go on autopilot again.

He glanced at his watch. He had to get down to the pharmacy and pretend to be Henry Johnson picking up his pills.

I’m becoming a master of deception, he thought. I’ve lied to my mother, Terri, my office, a pharmacist, Tom’s secretary, and tomorrow, my best friend.

He realized with a sick, sinking feeling that the only one he’d been truthful with all day was Snake.

Saturday

1

“John?” He recognized the voice and stiffened. He’d been standing here, waiting for the elevator to the White House’s first floor, silently screaming at it to hurry before he ran into anyone he knew.

Too late. He turned and saw Terri coming down the hall. He forced a smile.

“Terri. I didn’t think you worked weekends.”

“There are no weekends in a PR crisis of this magnitude.” Her welcoming smile faded as she neared. “Are you all right?”

“I think so,” he said. “Why?”

“Because you look awful.”

I’ll bet I don’t look a tenth as bad as I feel.

“Gee, thanks.”

“No, seriously.” Her brow was furrowed as she peered at him. “That must have been some virus.” Virus? What—? Oh, yes. The virus lie. Had to keep all these stories straight.

Another forced smile. “Hey, you don’t think I’d pass up an evening with you for anything minor, do you.”

“I didn’t realize… are you sure you should be up and about yet? You look completely washed out.”

“I’m tired but that’s about it. Another day of pushing fluids and I should be back to normal.” The elevator doors opened then and he quickly stepped inside, praying she wasn’t on her way upstairs too. Thankfully, she held back. She smiled but her expression was concerned.

“Take care of yourself, John.”

“I will. I’ll call you to find out when you’re free. We’ll set something up.” The doors closed, separating them. He leaned back.

God, how awkward was that? At least she believed he’d been sick. He didn’t have to fake his malaise.

He patted the side pocket of his sport coat and felt the cylindrical bulge of the pill bottle. The chloramphenicol. He’d peeled off the label. The capsules inside were now anonymous… tiny masked assassins.

He still couldn’t believe he was going through with this. Only for Katie…

In the first floor hall he ran into Bob Decker, the last person he wanted to meet this morning.

All those years of training and experience… he’ll know something’s wrong the instant he sees me.

The big Secret Service agent did a double take and suddenly the pill bottle in John’s pocket seemed to quadruple in size and weight. It felt like a can of baked beans, bulging the fabric for all to see.

“Hey, Doc. You don’t look so hot.”

“A virus. Bob. But I’m getting over it.” He started to point to the door of the Oval Office and noticed his hand shaking. He dropped it and gestured with his head. “He in there?”

“Yeah. Said he was expecting you. How’s he doing?”

“That’s what I’m here to find out.”

John waved and hurried to the end of the hall. He stepped up to the door, then stopped. I can’t do this.

But he could. He’d found a way to get himself through the act: Blame it all on Tom. It was Tom’s fault. If he hadn’t put forth this idiotic decriminalization program, Katie would never have been kidnapped. Katie would be safe at home right now watching her Saturday morning cartoons.

Katie would still have ten toes!

That’s right, Tom. Your godchild, the little girl who calls you “Uncle Tom,” has been mutilated. Not because of something she did but because of something you did.

He stared at the presidential seal on the door and thought. Whatever happens to you is your own fault, Tom. This is not my doing… it’s yours. You set all this in motion. What goes around, comes around, and you can’t escape the consequences.

That was how he’d do it. Get angry. Stoke that rage to the point where he was capable of anything.

Setting his jaw, he knocked on the door, then stepped through. And stopped.

He’d been in the Oval Office before, and every time it was the same. Seeing Tom there behind that desk with the light filtering through the tall windows behind him, the royal blue rug with its huge presidential seal, the flags of the U.S., the presidency, and the armed services arrayed around him, never failed to awe John, move him.

Seeing him here, he could truly believe that Tommy Winston was president of the United States.

Tom glanced up, smiled, then frowned. “Hey, Johnny boy. You look like shit.” And it’s all your fault.

John stumbled through the virus explanation again but he could tell Tom was barely listening.

“Guess who’s crowding in here at noon,” Tom said, tapping a sheet of paper on his desk. He seemed excited, wound up, full of barely contained enthusiasm.

“Floyd Jessup and the Reverend Whitcolm to offer their support.”

He laughed. “No, but almost as good.” He tapped the paper again. “Almost the entire southern delegation—at least those from the tobacco states.”

“What are they afraid of—marijuana hurting cigarette sales?”

“You kidding? They want to grow it—although they insist on referring to it as’hemp.’ No, they see the writing on the wall. With tobacco consumption falling steadily, they need a new crop, and’hemp’ fills the bill.” Do you see? Do you see? This is why Katie was stolen from me and mutilated! Because of your wrongheaded, egomaniacal plan!

“So they want to sell reefers instead of coffin nails. Great.”

“To tell you the truth,” Tom said, “I think they’d be just as happy if someone developed a flowerless hybrid that produced nothing smokable. We’ve been trying our damnedest to educate them on the commercial uses of cannabis hemp. Looks like they’ve finally come around to seeing that it’s in their interest to support a change in the laws. They’re just the first. It’s going to happen, John. The snowball is starting to roll.” I hope you’re proud and happy that Katie’s suffering because of you.

Tom kept rattling on as John inserted the stethoscope’s earpieces, muffling him. He inflated the cuff, watched the needle sweep up, then begin to bounce down. He listened to the blood forcing its way back into the artery beneath the diaphragm, and it seemed so loud, so vital, each whispery thump driving home the consequences of what he had to do and how it would effect that blood, cutting off its supply of platelets and red and white corpuscles, thinning it, wasting it, choking it to a trickle that could no longer supply the tissues it served.

He cut off the thought, cut off all thought. He couldn’t allow himself to think, to be himself, to feel anything but anger. For the next ten minutes he had to be an empty shell, an automaton following a hardwired program:

Take the blood pressure, lie about it, give him the pills, and then get the hell out.

Tom’s blood pressure now was 140/88. Better than Wednesday. High normal.

“Well, how’m I doing?” Tom said as John unwrapped the cuff.

“It’s higher.” A lie. See that? You’ve made me a liar.

“Higher? I’m surprised. I’m so much less stressed than last time. I thought for sure it would be better.”

“Let me try the other arm, just to double check.” John went through the motions, and got 138/88 on the “opposite side.

He shook his head. “Nope. Even higher over here.” Another lie.

“Damn,” Tom said. “I’m watching the salt. What else can I do?”

“I think maybe I should start you on a medication.”

“Aw, John, I’d rather not. You know that.” Don’t fight me on this.

“Yeah, but you’re going to that international conference next week and you know it’s going to be a pressure cooker. I don’t want your BP going through the roof while you’re over there.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know…” Do it! Take your medicine like a man!

“I’ll put you on a small dose of an ACE inhibitor, something so mild you won’t even know you’re taking anything.” Tom hesitated, then shrugged.

“All right. If you say so. I’ll trust your judgment. If I can’t trust you, who the hell can I trust?” Please don’t say that.

John didn’t trust himself to look at Tom. He covered by reaching into his jacket pocket.

“I was afraid it might come to this, so I came prepared.”

Tom laughed. “Like the Boy Scout you never were.”

“Yeah. Right.”

His fingers were so sweaty and shaky he had difficulty grasping the pill bottle. Finally he got it out and fumbled off the lid.

“Hold out your hand.”

“Here?” Tom said. “Now?” John somehow maneuvered a grin to his face. “I know you, Tom. I’ll write out a prescription and you’ll get it filled, and then you’ll put off taking it. ‘I’ll start next week.’ Am I right?”

“You know me too well.”

“Yes, I do. And I know next week never comes.” Somehow he managed to shake two capsules into Tom’s palm. Don’t think. Don’t feel anything but rage. “So here you go. I figure once I get you started, you’ll keep going. So I want to watch you take both of these right now.” John stepped over to a side table where a pitcher of water and glasses sat, and managed to half fill a tumbler.

He turned and handed it to Tom.

Tom took the glass and stared at him. “You sure you’re all right? You’re shaking like a moonshiner with DT’S.”

“The virus. I guess I’m not over it yet.” Fearing he might vomit, John turned away and stared out the windows at the south lawn. He couldn’t watch.

In half a minute it would be done. The gelatin capsules would be dissolving in Tom’s stomach acid, releasing their contents. The antibiotic within would begin making its way into his bloodstream, triggering the suicidal antibodies, releasing them to begin their kamikaze run on Tom’s bone marrow. And soon it would begin to die.

Soon— “No!” John spun and leaped toward Tom. “Stop! Don’t take those!” But Tom already had the glass to his lips. John knocked it from his hand and sent it flying across the room to smash on the floor. He clutched at Tom’s throat.

“Spit those out! For God’s sake, don’t swallow!” Tom’s eyes bulged in shock. He staggered back, knocking over the chair, but John stayed with him.

“Spit them out, dammit! Spit them out!” Tom wrenched free, turned, and spat on the floor. John saw both capsules on the carpet, then felt himself grabbed roughly from behind.

“Mr. President! Are you all right?” John recognized the voice: Bob Decker.

Tom leaned against his desk, rubbing his throat, and staring wide-eyed at John.

“I’m all right. But he isn’t. In God’s name, John, what’s wrong with you?” The Oval Office seemed to shrink around him. Decker was here… the Secret Service was involved now… and Snake said he’d kill Katie…

And suddenly he could pretend no longer. Three nights with no sleep, slowly dying inside as he tried to shoulder the entire burden on his own—he slumped in Decker’s grasp.

“Katie… they’ve got Katie!” Suddenly Tom was in front of him, gripping his shoulders.

“Katie? Who’s got Katie?”

John shook his head. “I don’t know. They took her Wednesday morning.”

“Kidnapped?” Tom said. “Oh, shit! Oh, Christ! Not Katie!” John felt Decker’s grip loosen. “If this is a kidnapping I’d better—”

“No!” John cried. “No, please! They’ll kill her.”

“Shut the door. Bob,” Tom said, “and let’s find out what this is all about.”

“But—”

“This is my godchild we’re talking about.” There was a sudden sharp edge on Tom’s voice. “Shut the goddamn door.”

“Yes, sir.”

2

“Her toe?” Tom slammed his fist on his desk.

His face had gone pasty white. “They sent you her toe?” John nodded.

He’d told them the whole story. A disjointed telling, but he didn’t think he’d missed anything important.

He glanced up from his seat at Decker, who stood to the side, hands behind his back, impassive, then back to Tom.